Community - Creativity - Collaboration - Radical Visibility
Our Story
The Looking Glass Gallery is a rotating, public-facing exhibition series presented by the Creative Dreamers Network. Each month, a local artist transforms a designated window space in Washington, DC into their own miniature gallery — a portal into their imagination, identity, and creative practice.
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This initiative brings art out of exclusive rooms and into the streets, inviting passersby to pause, witness, and connect. By treating public windows as curated exhibition spaces, we’re expanding where art can live, who gets to access it, and the artists who get to be seen.
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Art shouldn’t wait for an invitation — it should meet people where they are.
The Looking Glass Gallery lets it do exactly that.
Current Featured Artist
Bree Mercado
Mixed Media Artist | Painter | Curator
On view February 1st through February 28th of 2026
Bree Mercado is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores identity, belonging, and self-perception through a deeply personal and community-rooted lens. Drawing from lived experience as a queer, BIPOC artist, Bree creates paintings and mixed media works that invite reflection, softness, and emotional honesty.
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Much of this exhibition centers on color, abstraction, and the body as a site of memory and resilience. Through intuitive mark-making and layered textures, the work holds space for vulnerability while honoring joy, healing, and visibility—particularly within LGBTQ+ and marginalized communities.
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As the inaugural exhibition at Looking Glass Gallery, this body of work sets the tone for the space itself: reflective, accessible, and rooted in care. It is an invitation to slow down, look inward, and see yourself—fully and unapologetically—reflected back.
Why We Created The Looking Glass Gallery
Because visibility is power.
Because public art belongs to everyone.
Because creative voices — especially those of BIPOC, queer, underground, emerging, and experimental artists — deserve more platforms, more eyes, and more opportunities.
The Looking Glass Gallery reimagines what a gallery can be.
It’s not confined to walls — it’s woven into the city.
It’s not invitation-only — it’s for anyone walking by.
It’s not about exclusivity — it’s about community.
This is art at street level: intimate, accessible, and alive.
Our Mission
A city where art is woven into the fabric of everyday movement — where windows become canvases, sidewalks become galleries, and artistic expression is as present and accessible as light, sound, and air. We envision The Looking Glass Gallery as a monthly spotlight celebrating diverse creative voices across the DMV. It is a portal that reframes public space as an artistic medium and a touchpoint for connection between artist and audience, even without stepping inside a building. This cultural network supports creative careers while enriching the city’s visual landscape.
Over time, The Looking Glass Gallery will serve as a living, street-level archive of DC’s creative community — a timeline of expression, identity, and imagination.
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Our mission is to elevate marginalized, emerging, and experimental artists by giving them a platform that is both accessible to the public and deeply reflective of the Creative Dreamers Network’s core values: community, creativity, collaboration, and radical visibility.
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Our purpose is to create accessible, visible, and community-centered art experiences that uplift local artists and spark everyday encounters with creativity.
We aim to remove barriers to viewing art by using open, public spaces. We offer emerging and underrepresented artists a consistent platform for visibility while encourage curiosity and cultural connection in daily life. We aim to bridge the gap between artists and their surrounding community.
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Apply to Exhibit at Looking Glass Gallery
Looking Glass Gallery welcomes artist submissions for future exhibitions. We are interested in work rooted in identity, reflection, and community, with a focus on uplifting all artists, but especially those of marginalized communities. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. Selected artists will be contacted directly.