Pride Reframed: The Visibility Effect at PROUD+ 2025

By Patric Stillman

This year, The Studio Door makes a clear statement about the power of LGBTQ artists of color. From Jonathan Carver Moore’s curatorial voice to Max-Arthur Mantle’s lens, the exhibition insists on presence where it has too often been denied. In a time when lawmakers are working to erase and restrict queer lives, PROUD+ responds with unapologetic visibility and the power of our diverse community’s creative force.

The countdown to San Diego Pride has begun. Continuing its tradition of showcasing LGBTQ excellence, The Studio Door will open its doors to PROUD+, the eighth annual national visual art exhibition. From July 3 through August 1, the gallery will present work from over fifty artists across the country in a show grounded in courage and creative freedom. Juried in collaboration with San Francisco gallerist Jonathan Carver Moore and spotlighting the renowned Bodies series by photographer Max-Arthur Mantle, PROUD+ affirms the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion at a time when political forces are working to silence LGBTQ voices.

With each passing year, this San Diego tradition grows in national significance. The 2025 exhibition carries particular resonance by centering the experiences of queer artists of color, a thread that runs through both Moore’s curatorial practice and Mantle’s deeply personal visual storytelling. Together, their work amplifies the presence and agency of communities historically denied the spotlight.

Juror Jonathan Carver Moore – Jonathan Carver Moore Gallery (SF)

Jonathan Carver Moore does not follow trends. He builds platforms. From his gallery in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, he champions artists who are often ignored by the mainstream art world—queer artists, Black and Brown creatives, women, and those working at the intersections.

The Tenderloin was not chosen for optics. Moore has lived in the neighborhood since arriving in the city. To outsiders, the area carries stigma for its urban grittiness. But to Moore, it is a living archive of queer resistance. Just blocks from his gallery, trans women and drag queens stood up to police harassment at Compton’s Cafeteria in 1966. This was a pivotal moment for West Coast LGBTQ activism that predates Stonewall by three years.

He is well aware that choosing to locate his gallery there goes against the grain. “Even though it has a bad reputation, the Tenderloin is actually quite convenient. You can walk to the Museum of the African Diaspora, SFMOMA, the Asian Art Museum. It made sense for me,” he said. “And it matters that it’s here. This is where real stories are happening.”

His upcoming exhibition, To Be Seen, will run June 5 – August 16, 2025, during San Francisco Pride and centers Black queer artists across generations. The title speaks for itself. “I was told not to be too loud. Not to be too much. To stay quiet,” Moore says. “I reject that. This show rejects that.”

Moore’s curatorial philosophy is rooted in storytelling. “I’m not just wanting to show art. I want to tell the stories behind the art and for the artists. That’s what I often do. What’s going to make someone connect? What’s going to make them feel what I feel when I see the work?”

Though not a part of PROUD+, April Bey is one of three artists Jonathan Carver Moore champions in the accompanying video as essential voices to watch, alongside Khari Johnson-Ricks and Sipho Nuse. All three are pushing the boundaries of queer contemporary art in bold and thought-provoking ways.

In just two years, Moore has becomes a national figure in the arts. Moore has partnered with galleries and art fairs across the country, including in New York, Miami, and Los Angeles. “I’m in conversations with galleries so we can share artists across cities,” he said. “We need to be building something bigger than our zip code.”

The Studio Door is proud to be part of that collaborative vision. Moore’s selections for PROUD+ bring depth and clarity to a moment when visibility matters more than ever.

The Photography of Max-Arthur Mantle

This summer marks a powerful return to San Diego for Max-Arthur Mantle. Stationed here during his time in the Navy under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” he remembers the city as a place of hidden pain. Hillcrest was his only escape. “I’d sit at a coffee shop near Rich’s just to feel like I existed,” he says. “Now, decades later, I return with purpose. It feels different. It feels healing.”

Moving beyond pretty pictures, Mantle’s Bodies series has an undercurrent of reclaiming visibility. The Jamaican-born, LA-based artist created many of these works while living in Miami Beach, shooting fashion by day and building a personal body of work at night that explored intimacy and strength. The story is told through composition using the photographic elements of muscle, gesture, and light.

“There was no diversity in male nudes back then,” he says. “I chose to make the work I wasn’t seeing. I wanted to include Asian bodies, Middle Eastern bodies, and Black bodies. They’re beautiful. They deserve to be seen.”

At the time, Mantle found early success in Blue magazine and later published two acclaimed photo books, though he ultimately self-published a version of one that felt more true to his vision. “I wanted more variety, more honesty. Something that really reflected the world I knew.”

His work did not stop there. Mantle wrote a memoir, Batty Boy, reclaiming a slur often used against queer Jamaicans. “It was a chance to return to being—yeah, man—the whole Jamaican excitement of my birth,” he said. “It was very rewarding.”

That memoir inspired his documentary Visible: The LGBTQ Caribbean Diaspora, now screening at universities across the country. “It found an audience—Jamaican, Caribbean, queer people. People who saw themselves for the first time in something.”

Mantle now spends most of his time developing a feature film inspired by his book, but he still sees power in showing this early photographic work. “This was a time in my life when photography gave me a buffer to realize my strengths. It’s still relevant. And it’s still beautiful.”

8th Annual PROUD+

The PROUD+ exhibition runs July 3 through August 1, 2025, at The Studio Door (3867 Fourth Avenue, Hillcrest). Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11 AM to 6 PM. Admission is free.

Saturday, July 12 will host back-to-back receptions. A VIP reception from 4 to 6 PM offers early access to the exhibition and its artists. VIP tickets are available for $100 and directly support Words of Pride, a local LGBTQ public art collaboration that will continue expanding across San Diego through 2026. From 6 to 9 PM, the public is invited to join in for the annual free community reception where everyone can take part in celebrating this landmark show.

Pick up The WORD San Diego next month for an inside look at the unveiling of two important local art projects. Words of Pride and BOLD AND BRILLIANT: The Colors of LGBTQIA+ Pride by Carole Kuck which will be on view exclusively at The Studio Door.

To learn more about the exhibition, preview the artists, or reserve VIP tickets, visit thestudiodoor.com/proud-2025.