Portraits That Protest: Joanie Deveney’s FRAGILE/HANDLE WITH CARE at Negative Space

When someone looks at FRAGILE/HANDLE WITH CARE, on view at Negative Space Gallery, an inescapable truth is unearthed, one that all of us need to confront: that being fragile is not a weakness, but a human condition. Artist Joanie Deveney, AKA Joan of Art, created the exhibition through almost a year’s worth of accumulated photographs of friends, family and strangers holding the “FRAGILE” banner and naming their own portrait. Through this, Deveney turns the camera into a medium for mutual understanding and expression. “FRAGILE” becomes a threshold for political frustration, for love, for grief, for the softness of being human. Some of her subjects seem to hold the banner as a protest; others as a confession. All of them transform being “FRAGILE” into a refusal to be silent. The gallery’s walls come alive with the voices of the people, rising in strength and friendship.

“Although I had not realized I took so many portraits, it was a real pleasure talking to everyone and hearing their take on FRAGILE,” the artist says.

Joan of Art has exhibited throughout Cleveland including at Tremont’s Doubting Thomas Gallery. Her pieces include paintings, photography, installation art, and stained glass. FRAGILE/HANDLE WITH CAR, collects her talents into a single expression.

The project began with a banner that resembled a “FRAGILE” shipping label that she had painted and applied to the Euclid Beach Park Arch, a historic piece of Cleveland architecture that had been relocated. Deveney used to work at a label factory that printed these “FRAGILE” labels, and her job as a rewinder was to take large rolls of the printed labels and make them smaller for shipping orders. While working with these labels over time, she thought “these labels could be applied to humans and human nature.” Each of the portraits is being gifted to the subjects – the people willing to be a part of Deveney’s work.

The exhibition is ambitious, including 72 portraits and still life photographs, all framed in black and hung against the white walls, embellished with the red “FRAGILE” labels. Hidden in the sills of the windows, Deveney puts a personal touch and reference to her stained glass art. Placed on the glass, there are red and white panels representing a shattered window, with a brick wrapped in paper and tied with rope, and blank quotation marks, representing an act of revolution, breaking of stigmas, and ending of hate. Titled “SLUR,” with the epigram “some people throw bricks,” it implies that the brick has been thrown through the impromptu stained glass. The bright red color of the “FRAGILE” sign in the photographs commands attention, but still protesting what the people wanted it to mean to them, as some of their words are pasted onto the walls in their own handwriting, others on the placard. What is seen throughout the exhibition and the portraits, is a sense of hope and reclaim, a feeling of fighting against corruption, and being free.

Solita and Nicholas Deveney’s portrait captures the married couple, unclothed in the back of their van, on the threshold of protection and exposure. The warm bulbed light and scattered interior create an intimate sanctuary and an atmosphere of freedom. Their unflinching gazes suggest that their vulnerability is not imposed, but chosen. The bold red FRAGILE banner, unfolding across their bodies, declares the delicateness of the moment. The reference to Persephone and Dionysus, titled by Solita and Nicholas, summons a quiet mythic resonance, hinting at transformation in an unlikely underworld, as they are the god and goddess of their van and their world. The photograph treats fragility as a deliberate and luminous truth.

Now This IS Something I Could Handle… With Care photographs a sculpted hand resting on a worn surface, intersecting the commanding “FRAGILE” label, announcing itself through urgency and irony. The hand carries the impression of labor, its surface implies the continuance of grasping, holding, perhaps letting go. A button pin reading “IMAGINE PEACE” is placed in the palm of the hand, almost as if the imagination of peace could be held in our hands too if it is treated with this fragility and care. The title deepens this tension of humor and seriousness, representing a literal and metaphorical handling of what is delicate in the human experience. The assemblage of found items transforms into a meditation on the care we offer up to one another, the labor required to maintain it, and the fractures that naturally come. The image becomes an encouragement to reflect on tenderness in a world that so often must label itself to be handled gracefully.

FRAGILE/HANDLE WITH CARE becomes more than an exhibition, but a communal pulse. Negative Space Gallery, an oasis for emerging artists and the communities that gather around them, amplifies this openness through monthly rotations and Third Thursday studio nights, offering anyone to come and create together to feel part of something larger. Within this atmosphere of generosity and originality, Joanie Deveney’s portraits are enriched by the people, reminding us that together we can be fragile with one another if that truth is confronted. In our political climate, in the country divided, and with tensions escalating, this exhibition feels important. No matter your opinions, all of us are human and we all need to be ‘handled with care’.

Liv Began is a student at Cleveland State University and the recipient of a Fall 2025 CAN Journal Broadening the Conversation fellowship for young writers.

Joanie Deveney: FRAGILE/HANDLE WITH CARE
Through December 21

Negative Space Gallery
1541 East 38th Street
Cleveland, Ohio 44114