"Held & Holding" Exhibition by Jenna Annunziato and Jason Dunda

LOCATION: Friend of a Friend - 3575 Chestnut Pl

CATEGORY: Art Events

UPCOMING DATES AND TIMES:

• Thursday, May 21, 2026  2pm - 7pm most Thursdays
• Thursday, May 28, 2026  2pm - 7pm most Thursdays
• Thursday, Jun 4, 2026  2pm - 7pm most Thursdays
• Thursday, Jun 11, 2026  2pm - 7pm most Thursdays
• Thursday, Jun 18, 2026  2pm - 7pm most Thursdays

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Friend of a Friend is pleased to announce Held and Holding, a two person exhibition featuring artists Jenna Annunziato (Denver) and Jason Dunda (Chicago), opening May 16, 2026. Held and Holding brings together two artists who translate the human figure through different processes of transmogrification. Together they question benefits from systemic power and consequences suffered. 

Denver-based artist Jenna Annunziato finds value in objects that have been discarded. From forgotten tchotchkes found at thrift stores to objects found on the street, Jenna remembers what something once was, and what it has become through the process of abandonment. Her objects, often rooted in Western Classicism, appear fractured, damaged, and disjointed. With carefully rendered oil paintings, Jenna explores themes of alienation, value, and nostalgia through the use of color, intricately cut canvas forms, and humor.

She “finds solace in things that are overlooked, reflect[ing] her internal anxieties” shaped by societal standards. She is interested in the moment when a sentimental object loses its value and how this reflects social values on a macro scale. 

Discarded objects, in turn, tell a subtle story of the systems that uphold reckless abandonment, and ones who pay the price.

Chicago-based Canadian artist Jason Dunda creates paintings, sewn works, and carved objects that explore the complicated intersections of power, labor, masculinity, and humor. Through exaggerated figures, awkward gestures, and psychologically charged spaces, Dunda’s work examines how identity and authority are performed, often revealing the tension between vulnerability and bravado. His paintings balance sincerity with absurdity, using humor not as relief, but as a way to expose the instability of social roles and systems of control.

Drawing from everyday experiences, cultural archetypes, and the visual language of labor and leisure, Dunda constructs scenes that feel simultaneously theatrical and deeply human. His figures often appear caught between action and collapse, occupying environments that echo the emotional weight of work, competition, and social expectation. Across painting and object-making alike, his practice embraces material experimentation and physicality, allowing roughness, improvisation, and tactile construction to become part of the narrative itself.

Paired together, Jenna Annunziato and Jason Dunda explore the complexity of power and systems of control, examining them from various lenses. Jenna, whose careful renditions clarify the impact of alienation, connects deeply with Dunda’s sincere and absurd exposition of unstable social roles.