December 13, 2025 – January 18, 2026
Artist Fellows Megan Broughton and Zulu Heru present Build/Destroy, a two-person exhibit that reads like a conversation. Broughton exhibits prints and large drawings referencing at-risk natural environments and systems. Heru’s sculptures, made of scrap metal, cement, and industrial parts, serve as cultural remnants of the African diaspora.
Megan Broughton
GRO Fellow Megan Broughton is a multidisciplinary artist based in San Francisco. Her work addresses the climate crisis, loss, transformation, and the sublime. She exhibits a new suite of etchings that combine themes and images of the January 2025 Los Angeles Fires and the Arctic, unpacking grief of the socio-political climate chaos. The exhibit also includes an ongoing series of large scale graphite drawings by Broughton, created to grapple with the web of the climate crisis, greed, and violence. Many of the material shapes and patterns in the show — ice, fog, air currents, fire — are relics of the artist’s on-site studies in the Arctic that continue to influence her practice.
Megan Broughton will be displaying two new series of work in Build/Destroy. On view will be a suite of 6 etchings combining imagery from the Arctic and the January 2025 Los Angeles fires. Additionally, selections from an in progress series of largescale graphite drawings will be on view, superimposing imagery of natural phenomenon and manmade disasters.
BIO
Megan Broughton is a multidisciplinary artist based in San Francisco, CA, addressing the climate crisis, loss, transformation, and the sublime. She uses ice, fog, and air currents to underline our daily environments at risk. Her work stems from onsite study in the Arctic, whose materiality shapes and influences her practice.
Exhibition highlights include Berkeley Art Center, Richmond Art Center, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. In 2020, she received First Place in Studio Channel Islands’ annual show, The Next Big Thing, from juror and art critic Leah Ollman (Los Angeles Times, Art in America).
Notable residencies include MaréMotrice in Greenland and The Arctic Circle Residency in Svalbard. Megan holds a BFA from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). She was a 2023 California Arts Council Emerging Individual Artist Fellow and is a 2025 Gallery Route One Fellow.
Instagram: @meganbroughtonar1st
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Zulu Heru
GRO Fellow Zulu Heru presents sculptures made from scrap metal, cement, and industrial parts, that re-imagine and re-present cultural remnants of the African diaspora. In these sculptures, Heru references the African Mask as it has always been: a form of high art— spiritual, political, and sublime. Attuned to what society discards and forgets, he has transformed salvaged materials into sculptural vessels, breathing life into forgotten materials, reminding us that the discarded still carries spirit, and that creation can be a form of awakening. This practice follows the long-standing tradition within Black culture of turning scarcity into abundance; an alchemy of transformation that speaks to resilience and a spirit of renewal, challenging the colonial framing of African art as “primitive.”
BIO
Zulu Heru is a California-based sculptor whose work reimagines the cultural remnants of the African diaspora. Shaped by his time at Howard University, Zulu has emerged as a visionary artist redefining how African art is seen within the realm of fine art.
Attuned to what society discards and forgets, he transforms salvaged materials into sculptural vessels alive with ancestral presence. Through this process, Zulu embodies the long-standing tradition within Black culture of turning scarcity into abundance; an alchemy of transformation that speaks to resilience and a spirit of renewal.
His work challenges the colonial framing of African art as “primitive,” reclaiming objects such as the African Mask as forms of high art that are spiritual, political, and sublime in both craftsmanship and intent.
Zulu’s practice is rooted in mentorship and lineage. Guided by his godfather and mentor, Uzikee Nelson, a celebrated figure of the Black artistic renaissance, he honors a legacy of creative liberation. Nelson’s path carved space for Black artists to move with purpose and power; Zulu carries that torch forward, building upon this foundation with reverence and innovation.
A former commissioned officer in the U.S. Army, Zulu’s story is forged in metal and discipline. With over a decade of experience in metal fabrication, he brings a deep technical fluency to his art. As an operating engineer and professional art handler, he has helped install over 100 monumental works across the country, from Auguste Rodin and Keith Haring to Jaume Plensa, KAWS, and Sanford Biggers. These encounters with masterworks have sharpened his sense of scale, form, and legacy.
Zulu’s sculptures exist as both monuments and talismans, collapsing time and creating dialogue between ancestors and future generations. Each work breathes life into forgotten materials, reminding us that the discarded still carries spirit, and that creation itself can be a form of awakening.