Goddard Riverside · New York · March 2026

Inside the Exhibition

Installation views and opening night from the debut of Unapologetic Faces: The Cost of Being Seen.

Installation view of the Unapologetic Faces series at Corey Wesley’s debut exhibition in New York City. One of one contemporary works on archival museum-quality aluminum.
Visitors with the Unapologetic Faces series during Corey Wesley’s debut exhibition. Each work holds identity, presence, and the emotional weight carried in a human face.
Corey Wesley standing alongside one of the featured works from the Unapologetic Faces series during the opening of his debut exhibition in New York City.
Opening night at Corey Wesley’s debut exhibition. Collectors, visitors, and community members experiencing the Unapologetic Faces series in person.
Guests viewing the Unapologetic Faces collection at Corey Wesley’s debut exhibition. The faces are archetypes, not any one person.
Corey Wesley with exhibition hosts Manon and Eva of Goddard Riverside during the opening of Unapologetic Faces: The Cost of Being Seen in New York City.
Opening night at Corey Wesley’s debut exhibition of Unapologetic Faces: The Cost of Being Seen in New York City, where collectors, supporters, and visitors gathered to experience the series.
Visitors engaging with the Unapologetic Faces series at Corey Wesley’s debut exhibition. The collection holds identity, vulnerability, and the story a face carries before a word is spoken.
Corey Wesley discussing one of the exhibited works with Tiffany of Brown Style Magazine during opening night of Unapologetic Faces in New York City.
Corey Wesley with fellow artists Scott M. Lilly and Ayianna Vivana at his debut exhibition of Unapologetic Faces: The Cost of Being Seen in New York City.
A visitor viewing one of the large scale works from the Unapologetic Faces series, one of one on archival museum-quality aluminum, by Harlem artist Corey Wesley.
Guests exploring the Unapologetic Faces exhibition during Corey Wesley’s debut New York City presentation of one of one contemporary works.

Opening Night

A full circle moment, and a way to say thank you.

Goddard Riverside gave Corey Wesley his debut at the Bernie Wohl Center in New York City. He could have kept the night to himself. He did not. The series is called The Cost of Being Seen, and he knows what that cost is, so he shared the walls with two artists he had come to know over the years, Scott M. Lilly and Ayianna Vivana. What could have been one man's opening became a room full of work.

More than three hundred registered and over one hundred and fifty came. Wine, cheese, speeches, and three bodies of work sharing the walls. Guests wanted the story behind each face, and more than one said the work is more breathtaking in person than on a screen.

300+

Registered

150+

In Attendance

3

Artists on the Walls

1

Work Donated

In gratitude for the night and the community that made it possible, Corey donated Awakening, an aluminum work, thirty six by twenty four, to Goddard Riverside. Thirty percent of proceeds from the series support community programming.

The faces are archetypes. They belong to everyone and no one. In person they take on a life a screen cannot hold.

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