Born in Kara, Togo, West Africa, Bamazi Talle can best be described as an artist who uses canvas as a site for activism. He began his artistic career as an apprentice to his uncle, a traditional Togolese artist. Although he went on to study architecture in Lomé, he favorably transitioned to painting. Through his art, Talle is intently compelled to share the story of his homeland while dispelling the notion that Africa is largely a violent and impoverished country. He purposefully pays homage to his ancestors and the culturally significant ties between traditional and contemporary ideas.

Arriving in New York in 1995, with absolutely no understanding of the English language, Talle embarked upon what was the most challenging adventure of his life. His quest for knowledge led him to the New York Student Art League where he immersed himself in American culture. This was the beginning of Talle’s contributions to contemporary African art in America. He continued his education at the New York Academy of Art and graduated with a Masters degree.

Upon completing his degrees, and amongst the bustling art activity of New York City, Talle began exhibiting in a multitude of area galleries and institutions. It was at this time that he realized his greater desire was to raise the visibility of other African and African-American artists with the broader public. This aspiration would come to fruition with the establishment of KIACA (Kabiye Impact Contemporary African Art) Gallery in 2003, located in Columbus, Ohio. With KIACA, he was able to educate patrons on the enduring cultural gifts of his beloved Africa, while also serving as an influential talent incubator for young artists of color.

River F. Berry is a fiber artist, sculptor, and printmaker living and working in Columbus, Ohio. She graduated from the Columbus College of Art & Design in 2022. She is currently a Print Fellow at the Columbus Printed Arts Center and teaches youth classes at CCAD. Berry recently curated Softer, an exhibition of four emerging, Midwestern, craft artists at Sean Christopher Gallery. Her work has been exhibited nationally in spaces such as ROY G BIV Gallery, Kink Contemporary, Albrecht-Kemper Museum, and West Virginia University, and is currently supported by the Greater Columbus Arts Council Artist Funds grant. Berry will be pursuing a Masters of Fine Arts at the University of Michigan in Fall 2024.

Leigh Brooklyn was born in 1987 outside of Cleveland, Ohio. In 2006 Brooklyn enrolled into the Columbus College of Art and Design. Later she transferred to The Cleveland Institute of Art after being inspired by the work of forensic artists who helped in a missing-person’s case. She earned her degree in Biomedical Illustration in 2011. Brooklyn worked with several hospitals, museums, and research facilities including the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, The Cleveland Botanical Gardens, The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, and Case Western Reserve University.

After 2011 Brooklyn moved throughout the country gaining artistic inspiration from various individuals she met through her street photography. After hearing all the incredible stories of those she encountered and drawing from her own personal experiences Brooklyn decided to switch her work’s focus back to her roots of figurative drawing and oil painting creating portraits from her many subjects in the downtown Los Angeles area.

In 2019 Brooklyn understudied a nationally acclaimed figurative sculptor where she learned techniques for creating large scale sculptures out of oil-based clay to be cast in bronze. That same year Brooklyn began taking welding courses for use in her sculptural work. She learned SMAW, GTAW, GMAW, FCAW, plasma and oxyfuel cutting eventually earning her lifetime certification in 3G GMAW welding.

Brooklyn has won a variety of awards for her art since 2004. She recently won the American Illustration AI-AP 40 & 42 Award placing her work among the top illustrators and artists in the country. Her work has been displayed in galleries, museums, and art fairs around the country including Scope, The LA Art Show, Art Market Hamptons, The Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, the Makeshift Museum in Los Angeles, The Medici Museum of Art in Ohio, The Mansfield Art Center in Ohio, the U.S. Capitol Building and Corcoran Gallery in Washington D.C., The Alliance and Lichtundfire Galleries in New York, and the Diane von Furstenberg Studio amongst others. She is currently represented by Art Unified in Los Angeles, D. Colabella Fine Art Gallery in Connecticut, Virgil Catherine Gallery in Chicago, IL, and District Gallery in Cleveland, OH. She plans to further expand her artistic and humanitarian endeavors in the local, national, and international community.

Zoë Buckman was born in Hackney, East London on September 13, 1985. She is a multi-disciplinary artist working in sculpture, photography, embroidery and installation. Her work explores themes of feminism, mortality and equality. In 2015, Buckman is an Artist in Residence at Mana Contemporary.

I was born in 1976 in Erie, Pennsylvania, the first half (baby a.) of a surprise set of twins. My childhood memories consist mainly of hanging out with trees and reading library books but my twin Beth (baby b.) assures me that other events did happen. My middle school counselor pushed me into art classes probably because I was waffling without direction and possibly because he wanted to get to lunch early. My chance encounter with his longing for a PBJ eventually led me to the local school for performing and visual arts with two great mentors, Mary Pat Haven and Kenneth Kopin. They encouraged me to love and pursue art. From there I ended up in glorious Cleveland where I got my BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art. After a short stint in Chicago with a pirate, I settled in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland. It is now a good bit less grimy than it was when I first arrived. My neighborhood has definitely infiltrated my work and you can see bits of it in my paintings. Most all the buildings I paint are real buildings, though sometimes altered, and many of them are from Cleveland, since I live here. I paint full time now and also do some printmaking at Zygote Press where I have a second little studio. Over the years I have been fortunate enough to receive two Ohio Arts Council Individual Awards, The Cleveland Arts Prize, a grant from CPAC's Creative Workforce Fellowship program, a fellowship at the Vermont Studio Center and a summer residency at The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA via the O.A.C.

I am currently represented by Zg Gallery in Chicago and Michael Foley in New York City.

Cities are fascinating creatures. The work and organization that goes into a city’s creation and evolution, the constant shifting and adaptations and layers of changes.. I've been watching cities of sorts (some are perhaps just towns or hamlets or a block party ) evolve in my paintings for some time now. My cities are shaped by: everyday observations; cause and effect; a non-linear narrative; composition, movement and color; sleep deprivation; and at times, a desire to see large groups work together towards a common goal- making something bigger than themselves individually. Though my townsfolk have gone through some difficult and perilous times, I am now trying to focus on growth (which I realize is also frequently difficult). I am trying to put down some roots in a landless landscape and move forward. Nature has found it's way back into the work, and I am still discovering the role it plays and where this is all going. I am curious about the resilience of life and our ability to keep going in the face of ever shifting circumstances. My paintings celebrate this ability and also my love of the urban landscape.

Bruno Casiano is a Puerto Rican artist based in Cleveland Ohio who combines traditional and contemporary art. Born in Gary, Indiana, the son of a steel worker, Bruno’s family moved back to their hometown, of Juana Diaz, a coastal rural community in Puerto Rico, when he was 10 years old. Young Casiano developed an interest in art awakened by these rural surroundings and by the awareness of living in an Island, which made a great impression on him. In his work, regardless of the technique he chooses, from a traditional perspective he emulates the look and feel of serigraphy, which is an important aspect in Puerto Rican Arts and Craft traditions. In addition, the imagery of mountains, mangos, ceiba trees, caves, leaves, lizards, branches and water, colors and forms displayed in high contrast are common themes in Casiano’s work.

In the early 1980's, he studied studio painting at the School of Fine Arts in Old San Juan, Directed by Institute of Culture. In 1986, he receives a full scholarship to study illustration at School of Design, (Parson NY Affiliated) Altos de Chavon, Dominican Republic and in 1996 he receives a Bachelor Degree at the Cleveland Institute of Art in Ohio. In 2021, he opens Bruno Casiano Gallery and curates an array of important shows displaying works of local and international artists. Recently, in 2023, he had a solo show at Moca (Contemporary Museum of Art Cleveland) composed of eleven large mix-medium paintings.

My work is an exploration of “Domestic Mythologies”. Our culture surrounds us with pervasive archetypal myths and fairytales. When measured against these “Storybook” expectations, life appears daunting.“Happiness” and “Fulfillment” seem bloated and are almost punishing when viewed through fairytale lenses. I find myself at odds with prescribed routes to “Happily Ever After” and “Success”.

Creating artwork is the way I express my questions, concerns and hopes for the future. Being a wife and mother, I find myself wedged into roles that both trouble and delight me. The emotional concept of “Home”, belonging to someone and someplace, seems integral to human fulfillment. The perilous and circuitous routes to these goals are what I investigate in my sculpture. Connection, safety, security, hope and fear are some of the emotional triggers that crystalize ideas for me.

Creating visual narratives helps me understand some of the mixed emotions I navigate through on a daily basis. By distilling events and feelings into visual metaphors, I seek to reveal the complex layers and emotions that are behind seemingly simple, yet integral relationships. Taking things out of their context, and juxtaposing them with other seemingly unrelated objects, begs questions of relevance and purpose.

Ceramics is a malleable and expressive material that lends itself to seductive surface treatments and voluminous forms. The relationship between the medium and my choice of subject matter feels innate. Using humor and beauty in the work allows me to delve deeper into the heart of the intimate relationships that surround the domestic stage.

"Multimedia portraits and acrylic paintings are currently the vehicles through which my work is conveyed. Earth tones, brilliant colors, and skin tones are used most often. Photorealism, Hyperrealism, and Surrealism are the aesthetics which I use to tell the story of the post-modern Diaspora. I want people to see the life I’ve seen and want to see with emphasis on the similarities and differences in the everyday lives of melanated people. There is always a perspective of thoughtful emotion and introspect in my artistic process. I create to glorify the higher energies and frequencies from which this gift came. Ultimately, my goal is to give my children tangible and intangible benefits from which they can thrive on in their future."

Arris Cohen, known as Sir’ra, is a Cleveland born, Columbus based, classically trained visual artist who has been working professionally since the onset of the pandemic. His artistic vision is based in the diaspora and telling the story of his creative journey as African-American. Using vibrant colors and geometric shapes with melanated peoples as his primary subject matter, his paintings reflect Afrofuturism and Afro Surrealism. His love for painting has recently expanded to large scale murals and continues to diversify as he has been afforded the opportunity to teach and give back to communities that are more than similar to that from which he grew. He looks forward to continued growth and opportunity to inspire people to be symbols of life and positivity in a landscape where not much else can thrive, just like the Baobab Tree. His affinity for Art and giving back has transitioned into instructing high schoolers at Franklinton High School. He hopes to further that endeavor in the near future while continuing to focus primarily on his journey as a multidisciplinary artist.

Michael Coppage is a conceptual artist using an interdisciplinary, dialectical approach to address social issues surrounding race and language. Originally from Chicago, He has lived and worked in Cincinnati since 2007. Coppage is the three-time recipient of Artswave’s Truth and Reconciliation grant, Ohio Pretrial Justice grant, and received Awesome Foundation grants in New York and Philadelphia. He is the recipient of the Ohio Arts Councils Individual Artistic Excellence award, Artist Opportunities Grant and The Ohio Psychiatric Physicians Foundation Enlightenment Award. He completed a TEDx Talk titled “Everybody’s Racist….and it’s O.K” and he gained international attention with his recent project “BLACK BOX” : a community impact project aimed at demystifying blackness and creating authentic experiences that replaces bias and preconceived notions related to “Black”. This series has impacted over 2 million people in 29 countries and has been exhibited in Puerto Rico, American University in Paris, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, 21c Museum Museum, Medici Museum, Ohio Arts Councils Riffe Gallery and at ArtCrawl Harlem on Governors Island in New York. Coppage has completed several public works in the United States and has works in both public and private collections nationally gaining attention recently with a body of work entitled “American+”.

Elizabeth Emery is a multidisciplinary artist working in various mediums and across genres. Her sculptures and paintings reference movement, gravity, and the experience of the body in chaotic surroundings. Her work has been exhibited at museums and galleries across the United States including Museum of Modern Art Cleveland, Hammond Harkins Gallery, and Bunnell Arts Gallery in Alaska. She has also developed several series of silkscreen monoprint collage drawings for public commissions in hospitals and a library. Her work has been supported by the Ohio Arts Council, Rasmuson Foundation, and New York Foundation for the Arts, among others. Emery has been awarded residencies at Haystack, Jentel Foundation, Rasmuson Foundation, and FRONT International. Her work is in collections including at The Cleveland Clinic, Progressive Insurance, American Greetings, Rockefeller Collection, Westin Hotel Cleveland, and Schein-Joseph International Museum of Ceramic Art.

As an extension of her creative work and a former professional athlete, Emery operates the podcast, Hear Her Sports, which invites conversation around women’s sports. Through interviews, advocacy, and writing she celebrates individual female athletes who represent a range of backgrounds, perspectives and issues. A special edition of Hear Her Sports was recently commissioned as part of FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art. This collection of audio stories was originally presented by the Cleveland YWCA and is now housed in the Sports Research Center at Cleveland Public Library. Emery holds an MFA in ceramic sculpture from Alfred University. She now lives in Cleveland where her studio is inside a foreclosed house. Whatever her medium -- sound, ceramic, or collage -- Elizabeth Emery responds to the world with creativity, passion, and a desire to connect and make things better.

My sculptures are anthropomorphic and highly contradictory in form and intent. They are both sensual and deformed – effects created by blending opposing elements of construction with yielding fabrics. They read as crumbled, fleshy, and soft, but are, in fact, very solid. My aim is not deception, but rather a twisting of preconceptions.

Casting plaster, concrete, or clay into soft fabric forms lacking structure contradicts the effects of weight, pressure, and gravity on shifting shapes. That thin line where one surface, texture, or color meets another is where tension emerges. Colors intertwine, patterns overlap, and the bulbous forms envelop foreign objects, such a gold-leafed pair of young girl’s boots, or random tiny fiber remnants of the process. I am intrigued by the convergence of separate parts where the pairing oscillates between delightful and aggressive.

The explorations of form, texture, and decoration build from my past work as a textile designer for the New York fashion industry. I became especially interested in the way fabric contains space and merged this with the very tactile medium of clay during my MFA studies. In Cleveland, I’m surrounded and inspired by visually entwined, very pronounced contrasts in architecture (steel mills beside elaborate, wooden, two-family houses), culture (historically Polish neighborhoods jostling with new immigrants), environment (ocean-sized lake, farmlands, vibrant downtown within cycling distance), and climate (summer-big-blue-puffy-cloud skies followed by winter-low-grey-stillness).

Born in 1983 in Louisville, KY, Gee Horton is a Cincinnati-based, self-taught artist whose photorealistic drawings plumb the intricate depths of human experience. In 2020, Horton made the pivotal decision to leave his corporate career behind, fully embracing his artistic calling with a profound commitment to creative exploration and expression.

Recipient of ArtsWave’s Truth and Reconciliation grant, Horton initiated The Baobab Project, a pioneering social practice providing a reflective space for Black men to explore vulnerability and their coming-of-age experiences. His art has achieved national acclaim, featured prominently on HBO’s "Insecure" and Amazon Prime’s "Harlem," and he received an Emmy for his residency at The Mercantile Library of Cincinnati, where he created a monumental portrait of Black abolitionist Peter H. Clark.

Horton’s debut exhibition, “Coming of Age Chapter I – In Search of Self…Identity,” at the Alice F. and Harris K. Weston Art Gallery in 2021, showcased hyper-realistic charcoal and graphite portraits exploring themes of personal identity, the objectification of the Black body, media’s cultural impact, ancestral connection, and the preservation of innocence.

​"My work is an intimate tapestry, woven from deeply personal threads—lived experiences, wisdom gained, and spiritual and emotional revelations. Each piece represents a step in my ongoing evolution, embodying a soul in healing, growth, and the pursuit of disrupting generational wounds."

​Gee Horton’s upcoming exhibition, "Chapter 2: A Subtle Farewell to the Inner Child,” at the Kennedy Heights Arts Center for FOTOFOCUS 2024 Biennial, delves into Black masculinity and the human spirit, inviting dialogue on identity and healing through photography, drawings, collage, and a dynamic short film. Opening September 7, 2024, this immersive experience encourages viewers to reflect, connect, and discover beauty in self-discovery and resilience.

​Horton’s work is featured in prestigious private and public collections, including The Mercantile Library and The Cincinnati Art Museum. In 2022, a residency with DiasporicSoul in Senegal enriched his artistic journey and commitment to collective healing. Recognized on the Cincinnati Business Courier's 2023 40 Under 40 list, Horton holds a Master of Social Work from the University of Louisville, Kent School of Social Work, grounding his art in insights into societal influences and psychosocial development.

Kent Krugh is a fine art photographer, living and working in Greater Cincinnati, OH. He holds a B.A. in Physics (1977) from Ohio Northern University and an MS in Radiological Physics (1978) from the University of Cincinnati. He began a serious study of photography, eventually attending workshops in alternative processes with Dan Burkholder and Craig Barber, and a photogravure course at Renaissance Press with Paul Nelson.

His work has been exhibited in numerous exhibitions both national and international, at Cincinnati galleries and art centers; Panopticon Gallery, Boston, MA; the Houston Center for Photography, TX; the Center for Fine Art Photography, Ft. Collins, CO; the Williamsburg Art and Historical Center, Brooklyn, NY; the Minneapolis Photo Center, MN; RayKo Photo Center, San Francisco, CA; in Guatemala City, Guatemala and Medellín, Colombia; and in major festivals: the Fringe Festival in Cincinnati (2010); the FotoFest Biennial in Houston, TX (2012 and 2016); the FotoFocus Biennial (2012, 2018), Cincinnati, OH; the Festival de la Luz (2016) Buenos Aires, Argentina, the Click! Photography Festival (2017), Durham, NC; and the Medium Festival (2018), San Diego, CA; and the Warsaw Photo Days (2019), Warsaw, Poland.

He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors in both national and international print and portfolio competitions, including the “Tokyo Foto Awards”, Gold, Fine Art Special Effects (2018); “The National”, Ft. Wayne Museum of Art, Juror Merit Award (2018); “International Fine Art Photography Award”, Grand Prix de la Découverte, Jury Award of Merit, Experimental Category (2012). Krugh was a Photolucida Critical Mass Finalist in 2012, 2014, 2017, and 2018. His work is held in the collections of the Luz Austral Foundation, Buenos Aires; Cleveland Museum of Art, OH; the Portland Art Museum; the Cincinnati Art Museum; the Cleveland Institute of Art, OH; the Fitton Center for Creative Arts, Hamilton, OH; the Methodist Hospital, Houston, TX; and the Ft. Wayne Museum of Art. He is the author of several books, including “Speciation: Still a Camera” (Fraction Editions, 2018), “Inside the Gate” (Blue Sky Books, Portland, OR, 2014) and “Angel Oak”, an Artist Book in 3 limited editions (2013). He has also taught workshops in Colombia, in collaboration with the Colegiatura Colombiana del Diseño and Centro Colombiano Americano, under the auspices of the Universidad de Antioquia. Recently Krugh curated the exhibition “New World: Refugees and Immigrants photograph the experience of new life in America” at the University of Cincinnati Clermont for the FotoFocus Biennial festival in Cincinnati, OH.

Jesse Ly is an Asian-American photographic and image-based artist. They hold a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts with a minor in Art History and a certificate in Critical Visions from the University of Cincinnati’s college of DAAP. They currently are the Graphic Design and Photography Media Facilities Coordinator for Art & Design at the University of Dayton.

They have exhibited work both nationally across the United States and internationally. A selection of solo and two person exhibitions include Image Interference at Basketshop Gallery - Cincinnati, OH, Support Systems at SHAG (Stone House Art Gallery) Charlotte, NC and please remember this... at The Neon Heater - Findlay, OH. Notable group exhibitions include Wild Frictions The Politics and Poetics of Interruption at The Contemporary Arts Center Cincinnati, Auto//Update at the Carnegie Arts Center - Covington, KY, and I Don’t Know How To Respond To That at the PhMuseum - Bologna, Italy. They are a recipient of two Culture Works Artist Opportunity Grants, an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council, a Regional Artist Renewal Grant via the National Endowment for the Arts, and was recently named a finalist for the Aperture Portfolio Prize for 2023.

Shantell Martin, a multifaceted artist known for her work across various disciplines, has achieved notable success in the realms of fine art, education, design, philosophy, and technology. Her journey includes collaborations with prestigious institutions such as MIT Media Lab, NYU Tisch ITP, and Columbia University’s Brown Institute, as well as choreographing for the Boston Ballet. Martin's art explores themes like intersectionality, identity, and play, and she has showcased her work in solo exhibitions at renowned galleries, including the 92Y Gallery in New York, Albright Knox Gallery, and the New Britain Museum of American Art. Her involvement in media and technology innovation, particularly at the Brown Institute for Media Innovation, highlights her role in integrating visual art with storytelling and technology.

Shantell Martin's influence extends into fashion and design, collaborating with brands like Vitra, Max Mara, Tiffany & Co, and The North Face, which launched a collection featuring her designs. Her partnerships with celebrated figures such as Kendrick Lamar and Kelly Wearstler further underscore her impact in the art world. Martin's accolades include the Central Saint Martin's/UAL Honorary Award, the 92Y Extraordinary Women Award, and the Shorty Award for Best in Art, among others. Renowned for her distinctive style and meditative approach to art, Martin is not only a creator but also a mentor, teaching others to find their unique artistic paths and advocating for the benefits of creativity in enhancing mental health and personal growth.

I am a multidisciplinary mixed-media artist with a passion for all things glitter, and my artistic journey began at a very early age. From my early encounters with art, where I delved into the realms of drawing, painting, and collage, I knew that creativity was my true calling. Over the years, my artistic exploration led me down various exciting paths, including graphic design and illustration, which broadened my artistic horizons.

Today, my primary artistic disciplines revolve around painting and sculpture, where I have honed my skills and expertise. My current body of work is a culmination of the knowledge and experiences I have gathered throughout my artistic evolution. I have a deep affinity for celebrating the beauty and strength of black women in my art. In my sculptural paintings, I strive to portray these remarkable individuals in a radiant and celebratory light, paying homage to their Afrocentric essence through intricate details. I focus on elements such as hair, nails, jewelry, and clothing, each telling a unique story of culture and identity.

In my creative process, I utilize an eclectic range of materials to bring my visions to life. This includes the dazzling allure of glitter, the tactile depth of molding paste, the shimmering brilliance of rhinestones, and the unconventional textures of insulation foam, tulle, metal mesh, and beads. These materials serve as my artistic vocabulary, allowing me to express the rich complexity of my subjects in innovative and captivating ways.

My artistic journey has been a deeply personal one, and I take immense pride in the body of work I have crafted thus far. Each piece is a labor of love, a reflection of my life experiences, and a tribute to the resilience and beauty of black women. Through my art, I strive to share stories, evoke emotions, and celebrate the uniqueness of every individual. It is a journey of continuous growth, self-expression, and a profound connection to the world around me, and I am excited to see where it leads me next.

My mission right now and probably for the rest of my life is to create spaces and art for black people. We need many, many spaces where we can express ourselves without anti-blackness. A place for support from our brothers and sisters. I am so grateful that places like this already exist but there are so many black people out there struggling, not knowing where to go, not knowing who to talk to, or they dont feel like themselves, etc. I want to create physical spaces whether that is through my sculptural art or opening up my own organization, creating a club, the lists goes on. I also want my paintings to hopefully speak to black people and let them know that they are being represented, empowered, and cared for.

Samantha Schneider, an accomplished oil painter residing in Shelby, OH, Schneider carved her artistic niche with massive figurative works that seamlessly blend drama and soft elegance. Specializing in self-portraiture.

An alum of the Cleveland Institute of Art (CIA), Schneider graduated in 2021 with a double major in painting and drawing. Her academic journey was marked by exceptional studio practice, earning her the Eastman (1912)-Bolton Memorial Prize. Additionally, she was honored with the Mary Seymour Brooks Scholarship for Painting and the Liza Noble '48 Scholarship for Excellence in Painting, She has exhibited work in multiple group and solo shows.

Aubrey Theobald (she/her b. 1996) is an interdisciplinary installation artist born in Cleveland,

OH. Theobald received her Master of Fine Arts from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Sculpture (2024) and Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Cincinnati DAAP, with minors in Art History and Critical Visions (2018). Her work has recently been exhibited at Cranbrook Art Museum (Bloomfield Hills, MI), Stone House Art Gallery (Charlotte, NC), and Ruth G. Pearlman Gallery (Cincinnati, OH).

Theobald’s writing has recently been published in Fountainswimming Journal (Detroit, MI) and has publications held within Franklin Furnace Archive (Brooklyn, NY), Printed Matter (Los Angeles, CA) and the Cranbrook Library Archives (Bloomfield Hills, MI).

Theobald has recently been granted a Fulbright International Research Fellowship in Sculpture and will be practicing in Berlin, Germany for the continued 2024-2025 academic year.

Born in 1976 in Plainfield, New Jersey, and raised in New York, Hank Willis Thomas is a conceptual photographer whose work addresses issues of identity, politics, popular culture, and mass media as they pertain to American race relations. He earned a BFA in photography and Africana studies at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (1998) and a MFA in photography, along with an MA in visual criticism, from the California College of the Arts, San Francisco (2004).

Thomas’s body of work constructs dialogues around the stereotypical images of African Americans that media outlets seek to exploit and profit from in film and television as well as advertisements for alcohol, apparel, food, hair-care products, and cigarettes, among other items. Thomas situates the photographs within their historical context and addresses how these stereotypes have been pervasive in American culture since the antebellum period. Particularly interested in the literal and figural objectification of the African American male body, Thomas’s B®anded series (2006) appropriates advertising copy and superimposes a Nike swoosh logo onto the bodies of black men, recalling the branding of slaves by their owners. The series Unbranded: Reflections in Black by Corporate America (2005–08) was a direct response to the B®anded project. Taking mostly magazine ads of African Americans starting in 1968 during the civil rights movement to contemporary times, Thomas digitally stripped the images of all logos and text. In doing so, he allowed for commentary on how the advertising industry commodifies African American identity with even the simplest imagery. Thomas’s photographs draw parallels between the past and present and remind viewers of how dominant cultural tropes continue to shape notions of race and race relations.

In 2012 Thomas became Institute Fellow at Columbia College, Chicago, as part of his concurrent video installation project, Question Bridge: Black Males (2012), a collaboration with artists Chris Johnson, Bayeté Ross Smith, and Kamal Sinclair. The work is an accumulation of interviews with hundreds of African American men throughout the United States documenting their views on a range of subjects such as family, love, education, and community during the Barack Obama administration. Thomas has had solo exhibitions at Jack Shainman Gallery, New York (2009); Baltimore Museum of Art (2009); Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa (2010); and Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (2011). His work has appeared in group exhibitions, including those at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut (2007); Rubell Family Collection, Miami (2008); Museum of Art and Design, New York (2010); and the Istanbul Biennial (2011). His first monograph, Pitch Blackness (2008), garnered him the first annual Aperture West Book Prize. Thomas lives and works in New York.

Nicole Vindel (1992) is a Barcelona-based Guatemalan artist generating new narratives around food. Her strong connection with cultures brought her to intertwine quotidian expressions to explore deeper dimensions of modern complexities. Nicole’s practice advocates for visual arts to question our place in space, and has been described by Vogue Spain as “a food artist combining intellectual and formal beauty to generate cognitive conflict in her practice”. Starting designing for high cuisine restaurants, she moved to diverse creative fields that became part of her body of work exploring our perception of value, ecologies and identity where food becomes a medium to ask better questions.

Nicole is the founder of Random Happiness, Manifesto by doing, and Food Design Nation. She teaches at universities as Elisava, IED and Domestika; and has collaborated with institutions as FoodCultura, Tate Exchange, and El Tercer Paraíso among others.

Visual artist Carrie Mae Weems was born on April 20, 1953 in Portland, Oregon to Myrlie and Carrie Weems. Weems graduated from the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia with her B.F.A. degree in 1981, and received her M.F.A. degree in photography from the University of California, San Diego in 1984. From 1984 to 1987, she participated in the graduate program in folklore at the University of California, Berkeley.

In 1984, Weems completed her first collection of photographs, text, and spoken word entitled, Family Pictures and Stories. Her next photographic series, Ain't Jokin', was completed in 1988. She went on to produce American Icons in 1989, and Colored People and the Kitchen Table Series in 1990. Weems then created the Sea Islands Series (1991-92), Slave Coast and Africa Series (1993), From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried (1995-96), Who What When Where (1998), Ritual & Revolution (1998), Jefferson Suite (1999), Hampton Project (2000), May Days Long Forgotten and Dreaming in Cuba (2002), The Louisiana Project (2003), Roaming (2006), and the Museum Series, which she began in 2006. She also produced the video projects Coming Up for Air (2004), Italian Dreams (2006), Constructing History: A Requiem to Mark the Moment (2008), and Afro-Chic (2009), among others.

Weems is represented by the Jack Shainman Gallery in New York City, and has exhibited her art at the Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago, Illinois, and Gallery Paule Anglim in San Francisco, California. She has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions at major national and international museums, including the Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Corcoran Gallery of Art, The Frist Center for the Visual Arts, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tate Liverpool in England, and the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum in Spain. She is represented in public and private collections around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art (New York), The Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), The Art Institute of Chicago, and the Portland Art Museum. In addition, Weems has taught as an assistant professor or visiting professor at Hampshire College, Hunter College, California College of Arts and Crafts, Williams College, Harvard University, Syracuse University, and the University of Pennsylvania.

Weems has received numerous awards, grants and fellowships including the Joseph H. Hazen Rome Prize Fellowship; a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship; a Smithsonian Fellowship; the Alpert Award for Visual Arts; the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award; and the Anonymous Was a Woman Foundation Award. In 2012, she was presented with one of the first U.S. Department of State’s Medals of Arts in recognition for her commitment to the State Department’s Art in Embassies program. In 2013, Weems received the MacArthur Foundation’s “Genius” Grant, the Gordon Parks Foundation Award and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Wiley was born in Los Angeles, California, to a Nigerian father and African American mother. Wiley took an interest in art when his mother enrolled him in after-school art classes. At age 11, Wiley attended an art exchange program in Russia. In 1999, Wiley earned a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and in 2001 earned a MFA from Yale University.

Wiley is best known for creating heroic portraits of young African American men whom Wiley encountered on the streets. His first solo exhibition, Passing/Posing, was shown in 2002 at the Hoffman Gallery in Chicago, IL. In 2005, his popularity increased when VH1 commissioned Wiley to paint portraits of all the 2005 VH1 Hip-Hop Honors honorees.

In 2017, the National Portrait Gallery announced that Wiley and fellow visual artist Amy Sherald had been chosen to paint official portraits of former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. Wiley's portrait of President Barack Obama was unveiled in February 2018.