Ed Binkley: New Works Lead Traditional Fantasy at IX 2025 in GoggleWorks Center for the Arts

Scheduled to return to the GoggleWorks Center for the Arts from October 22 to 26, 2025, the annual IX Main Show will once again convene leading figures in imaginative realism under the auspices of IX Arts. Now in its seventeenth year, the juried exhibition has become a focal point for artists, collectors, and scholars of speculative illustration, blending high-caliber technique with mythic subject matter. The 2025 edition promises an extensive display of new works by more than 90 artists across three floors of the Reading, Pennsylvania venue, with Madison-based artist Ed Binkley among those returning to exhibit.

Binkley, widely known for his finely rendered colored pencil drawings of fantastical beings, brings a selection of newly completed works that reflect both artistic continuity and renewed technical focus. While his October display will form part of the broader IX Main Show programming, several of his featured pieces were also seen earlier this year in his solo exhibition ‘Beasties, Big and Small’ at Copro Gallery in Santa Monica. This continuity raises questions of thematic progression within Binkley’s oeuvre, particularly as the IX platform situates his work within a collaborative and curatorial context distinct from the solo gallery model.

Organized by Patrick and Jeannie Wilshire—collectors and advocates for genre-based realism—IX maintains a curatorial philosophy that resists hierarchy, instead offering equal presentation space to artists regardless of institutional affiliation or commercial stature. As the largest annual gathering dedicated to imaginative realism, IX not only serves as a market for original works, but also as a temporary pedagogical space—featuring live demonstrations, talks, and portfolio reviews. Within this environment, Binkley’s contribution functions as both an individual artistic statement and part of a larger cultural and academic discourse surrounding the status of narrative illustration in contemporary art.

Ed Binkley’s History

Ed Binkley’s artistic trajectory spans more than three decades, defined by a meticulous engagement with traditional drawing media and a distinctive focus on mythic and speculative subject matter. Trained initially in the academic methods of drawing and design, Binkley has remained consistently rooted in the practice of hand-drawn illustration, often working in colored pencil and graphite. His compositions are marked by a highly detailed rendering of fantastical creatures—hybrids of animal, human, and imagined form—positioning him as a recurring presence in both gallery exhibitions and book illustration projects tied to the imaginative realism movement.

Binkley began his professional career as a graphic designer and illustrator before transitioning to teaching in the Department of Art and Design at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he served as a professor and mentor to aspiring visual artists. Parallel to his academic work, he developed a personal body of illustrations that reflect influences as diverse as Northern Renaissance engravings, nineteenth-century anatomical studies, and contemporary fantasy literature. Over time, his artistic production gained visibility through commissions for publishers and contributions to collaborative editions of speculative fiction, including work produced for SUNTUP Editions and the deluxe publication of Robert McCammon’s ‘Swan Song.’

His visual language, though precise and tightly composed, is fundamentally narrative—each creature or figure emerges with implied context, suggesting mythic roles or folkloric roots without reliance on explicit backstories. In recent years, Binkley has exhibited at venues such as IX Arts, Copro Gallery, and Beinart Gallery, placing him within a curatorial network of imaginative realism that blends illustration with fine art presentation. His association with Copro Gallery in Santa Monica has been especially sustained, with ‘Beasties, Big and Small’ marking his third solo show there.

This growing visibility has coincided with his regular appearances at IX—first as a contributor to the digital Showcase format and later as a Main Show exhibitor. At IX, Binkley’s work has been consistently well-received for its technical clarity and conceptual restraint. Unlike some contemporaries who favor maximalist digital compositions, Binkley’s adherence to traditional media and his small-format drawings offer a studied counterpoint, reinforcing the exhibition’s commitment to celebrating a broad spectrum of representational approaches within fantastical and speculative art. His inclusion in the 2025 IX Main Show, set to feature new and recent works alongside a juried selection of his peers, represents not only continuity but a formal recontextualization of his bestiary drawings within a collective visual discourse.

The IX Main Show: A Five-Floor Exhibition

Scheduled to take place from October 22 to 26, 2025, the IX Main Show will return to the GoggleWorks Center for the Arts in Reading, Pennsylvania—an adaptive reuse facility located at 201 Washington Street that now houses studios, galleries, and classrooms. The venue’s architectural scale—an 18,000-square-foot former goggle factory—provides the necessary infrastructure for what IX has become: the largest curated presentation of imaginative realism in the United States of America.

Organized by IX Arts under the direction of Patrick and Jeannie Wilshire, the exhibition adopts a juried format that annually brings together over ninety artists whose work engages with myth, science fiction, horror, folklore, and fantastical world-building. Rather than assigning tiers of visibility, the organizers grant each exhibitor an equal booth footprint, reinforcing the exhibition’s curatorial stance against hierarchical stratification within the genre.

The 2025 Main Show will unfold across three floors of GoggleWorks’ central gallery space, combining fixed wall placements with modular installations that allow artists to create individualized display environments. Participating artists are given autonomy over the curation and arrangement of their respective sections, resulting in a visual rhythm that shifts from salon-style density to restrained thematic sequences. In addition to mounted artworks, the booths often feature working easels and in-progress sketches, transforming static display into a live studio encounter. This integration of process and product not only humanizes the exhibition experience but also reflects IX’s broader pedagogical aims—nurturing both peer exchange and public engagement with traditional illustration practices.

Programming for IX 2025 will extend beyond the gallery floor. Lecture sessions, technique demonstrations, and portfolio reviews are scheduled to run concurrently in GoggleWorks’ dedicated event spaces and classrooms. These ancillary components are central to the institution’s framing of the event as both an exhibition and a symposium. In previous editions, programming has included formal critiques by editors and art directors, thematic lectures by established illustrators, and curated screenings of artist-focused documentaries. While the final schedule for 2025 has not yet been published, the event’s continuity and structure suggest a similar programming model aimed at cultivating both discourse and visibility within the field.

Ed Binkley’s presence on the first floor will position his works within the exhibition’s most trafficked area, a space where institutional visibility intersects most directly with public attendance. Though his work was featured digitally in earlier IX showcases, this year marks a return to physical presentation within the Main Show framework. Within this context, Binkley’s contributions will be viewed not as isolated entries, but as part of a curatorial continuum that spans individual craft and collective genre identity. His inclusion in the 2025 Main Show reinforces IX’s commitment to representing traditional illustrators working in physical media—particularly those whose works maintain narrative nuance and technical precision without recourse to digital augmentation.

Behind the Scenes: IX Leadership and Vision

The IX Main Show operates under the stewardship of Patrick and Jeannie Wilshire, co-founders of IX Arts and long-standing advocates for imaginative realism as both a genre and a serious artistic discipline. Since its inception in 2008, the IX platform has developed into a central institutional presence within the speculative art world, defined by a curatorial framework that merges the aesthetics of classical realism with subject matter drawn from mythology, fantasy, science fiction, and the speculative imagination. The Wilshires’ approach to curation resists both academic insularity and commercial sensationalism, positioning imaginative realism as a legitimate site of fine art inquiry while remaining accessible to genre devotees and collectors.

Unlike traditional gallery exhibitions, IX is structured as a hybrid between curated salon and interactive convention. Artists are selected through a formal jury process, with panels drawn from across the art world, including museum professionals, gallerists, editors, and educators. While the Main Show enforces a rigorous standard of quality—works must be original, created with traditional media, and thematically consistent with imaginative realism—it departs from conventional curatorial models in how it equalizes the presentation of emerging and established voices. All accepted artists receive an identical spatial footprint within the exhibition layout, a gesture that neutralizes hierarchies of reputation and market value.

This democratic curatorial philosophy is central to IX’s institutional identity. As the organizers have frequently noted, the Main Show is deliberately structured to foster mutual visibility among artists while facilitating public access to a diversity of visual narratives. Patrick and Jeannie Wilshire have consistently framed the event as a corrective to both the marginalization of genre art within fine art circles and the oversaturation of digital media within speculative illustration. Their leadership has focused on maintaining a platform where traditional draftsmanship and analog techniques are not only preserved but elevated through a critical exhibition format.

Institutionally, IX Arts maintains partnerships with galleries, private collectors, and educational entities, yet it has deliberately remained independent of museum structures. This autonomy allows for curatorial latitude in programming, enabling the Wilshires and their jury to include works that might fall outside conventional academic or institutional mandates. At the same time, their leadership has contributed to the development of a broader discursive space for imaginative realism—through publications, speaking engagements, and an annual commissioning program that has produced large-scale works now held in the IX Arts Collection.

The 2025 edition of the Main Show builds upon this established vision, reinforcing the organization’s commitment to inclusive, high-quality exhibitions grounded in traditional media. For artists like Ed Binkley, whose practice exemplifies the meticulous discipline and mythic sensibility that IX seeks to promote, the Wilshires’ curatorial philosophy provides not only a venue for visibility, but also a professional framework that values thematic coherence, technical rigor, and historical continuity.

Ed Binkley’s Bestiary: New Works at IX 2025

Ed Binkley’s return to the IX Main Show in 2025 brings with it a new body of work that continues his long-standing preoccupation with fantastical hybrid beings—creatures that oscillate between the grotesque, the whimsical, and the spiritually enigmatic. Executed in colored pencil on toned paper, Binkley’s pieces occupy a distinctive visual register: finely rendered, modest in scale, and saturated with anatomical specificity. These latest additions to his evolving bestiary include ‘Speaker for the Dead,’ ‘Draconis Custos,’ ‘Feral God, Luna,’ ‘Changeling, Favorite Things,’ ‘Priest and Reliquary,’ and ‘Changeling, New Pet.’ Each measures approximately 11 to 16 inches in height and follows the artist’s typical format of full-figure portraiture set against minimal backdrops, drawing attention to form and surface detail.

Selected Works

Several of the works appearing at IX 2025 were previously shown in Binkley’s April exhibition ‘Beasties, Big and Small’ at Copro Gallery in Santa Monica, though the selection at IX also includes new, unpublished drawings. The continuity between the two exhibitions is aesthetic rather than institutional—while ‘Beasties, Big and Small’ functioned as a solo show within a commercial gallery setting, IX provides a different context: a juried, multi-artist exhibition underpinned by curatorial parity and scholarly engagement. By reintroducing works such as ‘Speaker for the Dead’ and ‘Draconis Custos’ in a new setting, Binkley invites viewers to consider not only the technical craftsmanship of his drawings, but also the fluidity of meaning that occurs when artworks are presented in changing discursive frames.

The iconography of these drawings is consistent with Binkley’s broader visual lexicon. His creatures, while entirely fantastical, are marked by internal consistency and rendered with anatomical logic that lends them an air of biological plausibility. In ‘Draconis Custos,’ for example, the dragon-like guardian figure bears a complex integument of scales and horns, positioned with the anatomical structure of a large reptilian quadruped. ‘Feral God, Luna’ conjures a figure of ambiguous gender and indeterminate taxonomy—part deity, part animal, part child. These composite forms evoke no direct mythology but suggest affinities with folkloric systems of belief, where animal hybrids symbolize transitional states of being or moral ambiguity.

Binkley’s decision to work exclusively with colored pencil on paper also warrants attention within the context of the IX Main Show. While many of his peers engage with oil paint or mixed media formats, Binkley’s adherence to a medium historically associated with preparatory work or children’s illustration reflects a deliberate inversion of expectations. In his hands, colored pencil becomes a tool for density, texture, and minute gradation—serving not as a shorthand for illustrative immediacy but as a method of slow, layered construction. The tonal restraint and dimensional clarity of these pieces reinforce their tactile presence, a quality that aligns with IX’s emphasis on traditional technique in a digital age.

At IX 2025, Binkley’s booth will be located on the first floor of the GoggleWorks exhibition space, where the flow of attendees is expected to be strongest. His placement among peers who span diverse technical approaches—ranging from classical oil portraiture to graphic ink work—further amplifies the clarity of his practice. Within this curated ecosystem of imaginative realism, Binkley’s creatures do not simply illustrate a fantasy world; they operate as visual essays in form, mood, and symbolic tension, marking his continued relevance within a genre that is itself undergoing increased institutional and critical recognition.

‘Beasties, Big and Small’: A Copro Gallery Solo Show

Held from April 5 to 26, 2025, ‘Beasties, Big and Small’ marked Ed Binkley’s third solo exhibition at Copro Gallery in Santa Monica, California. Situated within a gallery known for its dedication to pop surrealism and dark fantastical art, the exhibition offered a focused presentation of over a dozen original colored pencil drawings, each rendered with Binkley’s trademark precision and narrative subtlety. The show provided a concentrated look at the artist’s evolving bestiary—an assembly of creatures drawn from no identifiable myth or literary canon, yet composed with anatomical and emotional specificity that suggests lives beyond the frame.

The works displayed in ‘Beasties, Big and Small’ included titles such as ‘Sabra and the Dragon,’ ‘House-Hob, with Fancy Bird,’ ‘Shaman and Acolyte,’ ‘Rabbit’s Immanence,’ and ‘Speaker for the Dead,’ among others. Sizes varied modestly but consistently, often matted to 20-by-16-inch frames. Rather than relying on dramatic compositional gestures or overt narrative cues, Binkley constructed each image as a still, self-contained portrait—evoking the taxonomic pose of scientific illustration or the devotional structure of medieval manuscript art. This formal austerity lent the exhibition a meditative tone, emphasizing the viewer’s encounter with each figure’s texture, gaze, and implied presence.

While the Copro show shared aesthetic and thematic continuity with Binkley’s participation in the upcoming IX Main Show, the two exhibitions diverged in purpose and framing. ‘Beasties, Big and Small’ functioned as a solo presentation within a commercial context, tailored to a local audience familiar with Copro’s programming. It emphasized the artist’s individual practice, offering a concentrated view of his technique and conceptual interests without the comparative framing inherent to a group show. In contrast, the IX Main Show situates Binkley’s works within a wider curatorial discourse—placing them alongside the contributions of more than ninety artists working across fantasy, mythology, and speculative realism.

The timing of ‘Beasties, Big and Small’ in the months preceding IX 2025 has lent the two exhibitions a cumulative weight. Works such as ‘Speaker for the Dead’ and ‘Draconis Custos,’ shown first in Santa Monica and then recontextualized in Reading, demonstrating Binkley’s iterative process. The repetition of select pieces across both venues not only enables extended public access to the works, but also facilitates a comparative reading of their reception in two distinct exhibition formats—one rooted in gallery commerce, the other in curatorial inquiry.

Notably, ‘Beasties, Big and Small’ did not serve as a prelude or preview for IX; it was never listed in the official IX promotional materials, and no curatorial crossover between the two events was indicated. Nonetheless, the thematic and technical affinities between the two showings have inevitably led to their association. For viewers encountering Binkley’s work in both venues, the transition from solo to group context may offer insights into how visual narratives are shaped not only by content but by the institutional and spatial frameworks through which they are encountered.

Designing the IX Experience

The IX Main Show’s distinctive format extends beyond its curatorial philosophy to encompass an equally considered approach to spatial and experiential design. Held at the GoggleWorks Center for the Arts—a repurposed industrial building in Reading, Pennsylvania—the exhibition is staged across three floors totaling approximately 18,000 square feet. Each artist is granted a defined section of wall space, typically between eight and twenty linear feet, to present their work. The resulting layout is neither rigidly linear nor overly segmented, allowing for a fluid visual experience in which artworks unfold gradually through a series of micro-galleries embedded within a continuous architectural framework.

Unlike conventional exhibitions arranged around thematic clusters or chronological sequences, the IX Main Show’s design encourages individualized installations by each participant. Artists are permitted, and often encouraged, to bring studio furnishings such as easels, drawing benches, and display pedestals. Many choose to work on-site, transforming their booth spaces into active studio environments. This strategy functions not merely as a logistical convenience, but as a deliberate curatorial gesture—inviting attendees into the processual dimension of image-making and demystifying the traditional separation between artistic production and exhibition display.

Lighting and layout at GoggleWorks are managed in coordination with the artists, and the venue’s industrial proportions—tall ceilings, wide corridors, and mixed-use rooms—provide the spatial flexibility necessary to accommodate large-format canvases as well as smaller, intricate works such as those presented by Binkley. The open-plan design ensures visual continuity, while clearly marked pathways and booth numbers facilitate wayfinding. The emphasis is on immersion without disorientation, enabling visitors to navigate freely while remaining anchored by printed maps and wall signage.

GoggleWorks’ role as a multidisciplinary arts center also informs the structure of IX programming. While the Main Show serves as the anchor event, the surrounding infrastructure supports a parallel slate of activities, including lectures, demonstrations, portfolio reviews, and informal discussions. These events are held in the facility’s lecture halls, classrooms, and the Boscov Theatre, allowing for dedicated spaces of learning and critique adjacent to the exhibition floor. In past editions, programming has included talks by senior illustrators, technique tutorials, and critical roundtables on the state of genre art. Although the full 2025 schedule has not yet been released, the institutional model remains consistent.

This integration of exhibition and education reflects the broader mission of IX Arts: to establish imaginative realism not only as a marketable genre but as a field worthy of sustained critical engagement. The exhibition’s format reinforces this objective through its spatial coherence and dialogical structure. By granting artists curatorial autonomy within a larger organizational system, and by facilitating points of contact between practitioners and the public, IX transforms the standard group show into a participatory framework. For artists such as Binkley—whose works invite close viewing and contemplative engagement—the exhibition space becomes an extension of the artwork itself: a site of encounter, reflection, and cultural positioning.

A Gathering of Fantasy Legends

The IX Main Show has, over its seventeen-year history, established itself as a principal meeting ground for artists working within the fields of fantasy, speculative fiction, and imaginative realism. The 2025 edition sustains this tradition, presenting an expansive roster of over ninety artists whose careers span a range of visual cultures—from classical painting and book illustration to concept design and gallery-based narrative art. The list of confirmed participants reads as a cross-generational ledger of the field’s most influential practitioners. Among them are Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell, Donato Giancola, Omar Rayyan, Anthony Palumbo, Jeff Easley, Dave Seeley, and Mark Zug—figures whose contributions to fantasy visual culture have defined the aesthetic vocabulary of contemporary genre art.

Binkley’s inclusion within this cohort situates his practice within a broader lineage of visual storytelling that resists reductive categorization. While his drawings may be formally modest in scale, their conceptual rigor and meticulous execution align him with the ethos of the show: a commitment to imaginative engagement rooted in traditional media. His presence among these established figures reflects both curatorial recognition and peer validation. The egalitarian structure of the IX Main Show—where each artist, regardless of reputation, is granted equal display space—further emphasizes the democratic ethos that undergirds the exhibition’s design.

The gathering of such a concentrated field of practitioners produces an environment that is as much collaborative as it is presentational. The absence of hierarchical positioning within the booth layout allows for informal exchanges between artists and fosters a sense of collegiality across generational and stylistic lines. This atmosphere of shared practice is one of IX’s distinguishing characteristics. Unlike conventional art fairs, which often foreground commercial exclusivity or curatorial gatekeeping, IX encourages a model of horizontal engagement: artists speak directly to visitors, demonstrate techniques in real time, and participate in group critiques and portfolio reviews alongside emerging voices.

The critical value of this model has been affirmed not only by the participating artists but also by curators, collectors, and educators who engage with the show as a site of professional development and cultural visibility. The Wilshires’ curatorial vision positions IX as an annual intervention in the cultural marginalization of fantasy art—reframing it as a field of rigorous visual inquiry rather than relegated entertainment. In this sense, the IX Main Show operates as both a corrective and an assertion, providing a venue where genre and craftsmanship intersect without apology or dilution.

Binkley’s work, situated within this collective framework, stands as an example of the ways in which an individual artistic voice can contribute to a shared cultural movement. His bestiary of subtle, psychologically evocative creatures complements the more dramatic visual vocabularies of his peers, offering a quieter but no less potent meditation on the possibilities of speculative figuration. Within the context of IX 2025, his drawings reinforce the exhibition’s dual function: to showcase the diversity of imaginative realism and to argue for its critical and institutional legitimacy.

Conclusion

Ed Binkley’s presence at the IX 2025 Main Show, situated within the expansive and egalitarian framework of GoggleWorks Center for the Arts, reflects a maturing recognition of imaginative realism as a discipline worthy of critical and institutional regard. Under the careful stewardship of Patrick and Jeannie Wilshire, the exhibition continues to elevate genre-based narrative art beyond the commercial niche or academic peripheral, advocating for a space where speculative vision and classical technique converge without compromise.

Binkley’s intricate portraits of mythic beings—rendered with the quiet authority of traditional craft—do not stand apart as fantastical anomalies, but rather contribute to a collective vocabulary that reclaims the legitimacy of the imagined. In this curatorial context, his work becomes part of an ongoing assertion: that narrative, when shaped with precision and purpose, holds enduring value within contemporary artistic discourse.

For those engaging with the exhibition in person or through its broader cultural implications, these drawings invite a deeper reckoning with how fantasy can inform, complicate, and enrich our understanding of art’s evolving role—an invitation to reflect, respond, and participate in the dialogue such works continue to provoke.