PHOENIX, Jan. 27, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — On January 26, Artist and Butterfly Art Collective Founder, Cheryl Najafi debuted Resilience, a new sculptural series examining transformation, endurance, and collective memory, at the Phoenix Art Museum. The unveiling marked the first public presentation of the series, which centers on abstraction, material reconfiguration, and symbolic metamorphosis through the recurring form of the butterfly.
The exhibition featured seven large-scale Butterfly Sculptures with wingspans of up to five feet, drawn from a larger body of work comprising 25 pairs. Each butterfly was created to represent and commemorate communities impacted by mass shootings in the United States, emphasizing physical presence and material memory to honor resilience and survival beyond conventional narrative forms. In total, over 100 butterflies were on display, including smaller-scale works designed as miniatures of their larger counterparts.
Resilience is conceived as a distributed body of work rather than a static exhibition. Following its national tour, each sculpture will be permanently installed in its corresponding community, with its paired counterpart featured in a final exhibition, ensuring both local remembrance and national reflection.
Fabricated from flexible soft resin, the sculptures incorporate embedded found materials and fragments of bullets connected to the mass shootings that prompted their creation. The resulting forms balance delicacy and durability, creating a sustained tension between fragility and permanence that anchors the installation.
“When a butterfly emerges from its cocoon, it’s irreversibly transformed—yet it gains the strength to cross oceans,” said Cheryl Najafi, founder and artist of Butterfly Art Collective. “This exhibition is about honoring the lives forever changed by violence while acknowledging the extraordinary resilience of these communities. Through art, we create space for remembrance, healing, and action.”
Co-founders Gabriel Vinas and Kelsey Vinas emphasized the intentionality behind the materials and form. “Every material embedded in these sculptures carries weight and meaning,” said Gabriel Vinas. “The work is about holding complexity, grief and resilience, fragility and strength, within a single, evolving form, and using that tension to spark reflection, conversation, and meaningful change,” said Kelsey Vinas.
“The Phoenix Art Museum is honored to present the debut of Resilience, a sculptural series that powerfully explores transformation, endurance, and collective memory through abstraction and material reinvention,” said C. Ryan Joyce, Chief Development Officer for the Phoenix Art Museum. “Butterfly Art Collective’s work demonstrates how contemporary art can serve as both a reflective and catalytic force, inviting viewers to engage with themes of metamorphosis while supporting organizations committed to preventing violence and fostering safer communities.”
Through Resilience, art becomes an accessible entry point for conversation, reflection, and agency, with art purchases supporting GIFFORDS and Sandy Hook Promise. The model reinforces the exhibition’s central premise: that art can move beyond awareness to create meaningful, collective action.
About Butterfly Art Collective
Butterfly Art Collective is a group of artists creating art and experiences that inspire agency and meaningful change in the world. Grounded in the belief that art should do more than raise awareness, the Collective creates work that generates tangible impact and invites meaningful participation. Its inaugural campaign, Resilience, merges art with impact through the creation and national tour of 25 pairs of soft resin Butterfly Sculptures honoring communities transformed by the 25 deadliest mass shootings in the United States.
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SOURCE Butterfly Art Collective
