Ferguson-born artist Juanita McNeeley (1936–2023) dedicated more than five decades to painting, drawing, and ceramics, developing a frank and unflinching visual language centered on the body as a site of vulnerability, desire, and resilience. Presented as part of Counterpublic 2026: Coyote Time, this exhibition marks the first-ever solo presentations of her work in her hometown.

Born in Ferguson, MO and educated at the School of Fine Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, McNeeley’s practice was shaped by profound personal experience. A cancer survivor in her youth, she later became active in feminist circles in New York—including Women Artists in Revolution and Redstockings—and her experience seeking an abortion in the years preceding Roe v. Wade informed a body of work that viscerally engages with the politics of womanhood. After sustaining a spinal injury in the 1980s, she continued producing large-scale paintings depicting the body in states of tension and transformation, figures elastic and precarious, resisting containment within the picture plane.

At CAM, a focused presentation centers on Triskaidekaptych (1986), a monumental 13-panel painting bringing together human and animal forms in a vivid chromatic palette animated by rapid brushstrokes. A broader selection of paintings, drawings, and ceramics that trace the full arc of her practice will be on view at the Saint Louis Art Museum.

This exhibition is organized by Raphael Fonseca, Counterpublic 2026 co-curator and curator-at-large at the Denver Art Museum, with assistance from Dean Daderko, Ferring Foundation Chief Curator at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, and Simon Kelly, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Saint Louis Art Museum.