I’m looking forward to tomorrow

Inaugural Exhibition: Saturday, September 26th through Saturday, November, 14th (in person)

Header image: "Eclipse" still by Leia Genis

In this first exhibition at Good News Arts, I wanted to show off the incredible talent and work of the many artists I hope to collaborate with during the initial programming for the space. I am a person unafraid of gushing over the people and work I admire and I can say, without a doubt, that putting this show together has been one of the highlights of my year.

Many of the artists I'll be choosing to work with at Good News Arts imagine a world that is different from our own, a future that is better, or they challenge our present. Many of the artists I admire draw heavily from past lives, experiences, and histories to inform their work and the creative spaces they imagine. There is, for me, no doubting that I am looking forward to tomorrow when it includes the work of these artists.

I also think a little acknowledgment of the current climate of our existence, one filled with revolution and resistance, enables us to look forward to a day when those fights pay off. We can hope for a new normal that we can all live with.

-Jessica

 

Aineki Traverso is an oil painter based in Atlanta. Aineki has shown work in several galleries and artist-run spaces in Atlanta, NY, and DC and has been featured in publications such as Bat City Review, Wussy Mag, and Rivulet. Recently, Aineki started Groundswell, DIY initiative providing a platform for BIPOC and queer artists in Atlanta.

 

Alexis Childress is an Atlanta based photographer and mixed media artist born and raised Illinois, relocating to Georgia in 2013. Inspired by Afrofuturism, her work manifests as visual interpretations of her experiences growing up as a black woman in the rural Midwest, confronted with racial tensions and generational oppression; using technology to examine race, culture, social transition, and self-identity. She received her BFA from Georgia State University and her work has been shown with Atlanta Photography Group Gallery, Day and Night Projects, Agnes Scott College and published in Under the Bridge Zine.

 

Alice Stone-Collins is an artist living in Atlanta, GA where she is a faculty member at Georgia Gwinnett College. Her intricate hand-painted collaged pieces ask questions of tradition and to the ties that bind. Alice's work highlights the tensions between the mundane, the everyday, and the apparent dead.

Alice earned her MFA in studio art from the University of Tennessee and has exhibited her work regionally and nationally. She has been a resident artist at KMAC (Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft) based out of Louisville, Kentucky and the David and Julia White Artist Colony in Ciudad Colon, Costa Rica. She was also a finalist for the Jean-Claude Reynal Scholarship among other honors and awards.

Allison Baker

She/Her

 

Allison Baker earned her MFA in Sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design, a BFA in Sculpture and BA in Gender Studies from Indiana University.Her work investigates hegemonic femininity as a site of transgression and resistance.

Currently, she is an Assistant Professor of Sculpture and Studio Art at Hamline University where she tries to impart some knowledge of finesse, persuasion, and manual labor.

Allison has exhibited nationally and internationally, including the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Flux Factory, and Knockdown Center in New York, and a recent solo exhibition at the CICA Museum in South Korea. She has held a number of national and international residencies, including Franconia Sculpture Park (where her work is currently exhibited)

 

Angela Bortone is a Dominican-Italian painter and muralist in Atlanta exploring how emotions feel in the body with bold color in her expressive portraits. Born in Santo Domingo, she grew up in army bases in Brooklyn and Heidelberg before moving to Georgia in 2002, where she earned a BFA in studio art from Georgia State University in 2010. Her ambition is to travel the US and paint wild and huge portraits full of movement and feeling.

 

Angela Davis Johnson, informed by the wisdom of the matriarchs in her family, creates paintings, sculptures, installations, and ritual performances to examine and archive the technologies of black folks. Merging art into a contemplative practice she embodies Live Dreaming - a process of deep listening, imagining, constructing, and recording personal + community ancestry. She generates experiential spaces to bring personal and communal healing around poverty, displacement, and state sanctioned violence. Co -creator of the Hollerin Space, an ongoing experimental healing installation, Davis Johnson has performed in several states in the regional south. Her works can be seen in galleries, museums, and private collections throughout the United States. 

 

Born 1991,  St. Petersburg, FL. Lives and works in Gainesville, FL.

 

Brittany M. Watkins is an interdisciplinary artist based in the Southern United States. She was born and raised in Carrollton, GA, where she remained through the completion of her bachelor’s degree and acceptance to graduate school at Florida State University (FSU) in 2013. After the completion of her master’s degree in fine art, she has continued to exhibit throughout southeast and abroad. In 2017, she received the Juried Panel Prize at ArtFields for her site-specific installation Accept [(Self) + Elsewhere].


Throughout the past five years, Watkins has become increasingly concerned with the dissemination and support of art in the South; thus, helping to establish and work with regional artist-run spaces, artists, and pop-up exhibitions. Her work has been exhibited in a variety of venues ranging from international art fairs and museums, to non-profit centers and experimental spaces in North America, Iceland, Germany, Estonia, and the Philippines. After stepping down as adjunct profession, studio manager, and president of 621 Gallery in May of 2019, Watkins relocated to Columbia, SC in hopes of achieving sustainability in her practice. She is currently working on transforming her home into a non-traditional studio and collaborative art space with hopes of one day hosting other creatives.

 

Cheryl McCain was born in Ocala, Florida. She is a retired Navy veteran, who served honorably for twenty years. Two years after retirement, she enrolled at the Art Institute of Jacksonville to study photography. After two years at AI, she left her studies to care for her ailing husband. Just before leaving school, her work was published in the Miami based magazine, Chellae and Jacksonville publication Void magazine. She has shot and directed two music videos (one of which has been nominated video of the year by DuvalHipHop.com), photographed four album covers for local artists and has been a featured artist at The Groove Suite: Artist Edition two years in a row. In 2018 she was one of thirteen photographers selected to contribute to the exhibit “Jacksonville: A Tale of My City”, at the Jacksonville Public Library’s Jax Makerspace curated by Shawana Brooks and part of the “Let’s Go!” exhibit at the Jacksonville International Airport’s Haskell Gallery. She also was selected and competed in the 2019 Artfields Artist Competition located in Lake City, South Carolina. She was recently selected to participate in 2019 Through Our Eyes exhibit at the Ritz Theater and Museum. Photographers like William Eggleston, Carrie Mae Weems, Lorna Simpson, Henri Cartier Bresson and James Van Der Zee have had great influence on her process and approach when it comes to capturing any subject. In studying these photography giants, she has developed an eye for drawing the viewer in and telling a story with her photography. Her objective is to have the viewer to see the world as she sees it when she looks through her viewfinder. She believes that should be every photographers objective first and foremost. Cheryl has been married for over seven years to Charles McCain. She has four adult children Antonio, Mia, Emanuel and Vivica. Cheryl and her husband currently reside in Historic Springfield in Jacksonville, FL.

Codi Maddox

She/Her

 

Outsider Artist depicting and narrating urban life

Eliza Aviña

She/Her

 

Eliza Aviña is an Atlanta based artist, currently an undergraduate student at Georgia State University. She is currently pursuing her BFA in photography.
Eliza is a first-generation college student and second-generation immigrant in the U.S. She is proud of her Mexican roots and aims to represent Latinx people and other marginalized groups within her work. Additionally, she is interested in visually representing ideas of individualism through digital and analog photography.
Eliza Aviña’s work has been exhibited in the Welch Gallery at Georgia State University, Cage Space in Atlanta, Corridoio Fiorentino, and Corridora, Palazzo Dell’Ospitalità in Florence, Italy.

 

Eugenia Alexander is a multidisciplinary artist from Illinois. She studied fine art and art history at Columbia College Chicago, but is largely self-taught, and currently lives and works in Edwardsville, IL and has been painting for over seventeen years. Subconsciously refining her visual works, Alexander has created her own genre and her own signature style, which viewers can easily recognize through the one line illustration, as well as her indigo textile work. Alexander’s work has been featured in several group and solo exhibitions and events, including: Lamberts Airport (2020), Saint Louis Art Museum, Science, Shape and Self (2018); Imagery of Chess Saint Louis Artist , World Chess Hall of Fame (2017) Evolving Archetypes, SOHA Studio & Gallery, Saint Louis (2016); Powerful Black Women Artists, Vaughn Cultural Center, Saint Louis (2016); and Blended Spirits: Where Two Artful Souls Collide, Old North St. Louis Restoration Group (2015). Additionally, she has been featured in many media outlets including Wall Street International, ALIVE Magazine, All the Art: The Visual Art Quarterly of St. Louis gracing both the front and back cover, Santa Clara University’s Explore Journal, and NPR Saint Louis Public Radio, among many others have profiled Alexander.

Haylee Anne

She/Her

 

Haylee Anne creates images, moments, and words centered on ethereal, visceral memory as a way to confront trauma and spiritual justice. Her performative, transcendent images incorporate figures that ask: how can we defeat this, where can we rest, how do we breathe, who do we seek to be, and how are we going to get there? A BFA graduate from Montclair State University, her images have shown in venues such as the Center for Civil and Human Rights, The Bishop Gallery, and Soho20 Gallery. In 2013 she was awarded the VSA Excellence in Artistry award by the Smithsonian and the Kennedy Center. As an enthusiastic member of Living Melody Collective and collaborator with the Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities, she focuses on civic engagement, awareness, advocacy, and community impact, so that vulnerable populations can achieve progress in the face of a shrinking social safety net.

Hilary White

She/Her

 

Hilary White creates three-dimensional works using multiple mediums. While studying painting she continued to develop her love of sculpture and has incorporated it into her practice of creating. She has participated in multiple art basels and exhibitions showing her work locally and internationally.

 

Born in Seoul, South Korea, In Kyoung Chun received the Emerging Artist Award 2012-2013 by the City of Atlanta Mayors Office of Cultural Affairs. Chun has participated in exhibitions including High Museum of Art of Atlanta, Athens Institute of Contemporary Art of Georgia, Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia, Poem 88 gallery, Gallery 72 of Atlanta Mayors Office of Cultural Affairs, Aqua Miami Art Fair, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Albany Museum of Fine Art of Georgia and 1780 Gallery, Virginia Museum of Fine Art of Richmond.
In 2019, Chun’s inflatable sculpture Lotus was installed during SuperBowlATL weekend in downtown Atlanta. She participated in the exhibition Gatherd VI at MOCA GA, No Place Like Home at Hathaway Contemporary and Install Mint at Mint gallery in Atlanta. In this spring of 2020, Chun joined the Atlanta Contemporary Studio program and had her two-person show at Project:ARTspace in New York City. Over last Mother’s Day weekend, Chun installed the Flowered Two Circles in front yard of her house for dedicating to the front-line-workers at the hospital and mothers/women who are hard-working for their family and community. She currently participates in the following exhibitions; She Is Here at Atlanta Contemporary and In Search For Home at Dalton gallery of Agnes Scott College and Living Room at Stove Works in Tennessee in 2021.

Chun’s work has been included to its permanent collection of High Museum of Art, the City of Atlanta Mayors Office of Cultural Affairs and Fulton County Public Library of Atlanta.

Jack Michael

She/Her

 

Jack Michael is an interdisciplinary artist whose work studies the dynamics of utopian longing, ambition, and failure in the context of empathy. Her work is broadly autobiographical, deeply sociopolitical, and rooted in global history, contemporary politics, and literary fiction. Her practice spans media ranging from traditional printmaking, drawing, painting, and quilting methods to social sculpture, motorcycle-based endurance performance, and mixed-media monuments.

Jack earned a B.A. in Art from Sewanee: The University of the South and an MFA from Georgia State University. She is currently an instructor at Brevard College, Blue Ridge Community College, and Georgia State University.

Her recent accolades include a transnational weaving on the US-Mexico border fence; teaching residencies in the U.S. and abroad; a solo show at the Ionion Center for Arts & Culture in Kefalonia, Greece; a nomination for the Dedalus Foundation MFA Fellowship; numerous group shows; national curatorial projects; and grants and awards for international residencies and research initiatives.

When not teaching or working in her studio, Jack is an adventure motorcycle advocate and sponsored adventure motorcyclist, working to advance the presence of women and environmental advocacy within the greater motorcycle community.

 

Jessica Elaine Blinkhorn was born in Austell, Georgia and is a working Artist and Arts Educator in the city of Atlanta. Having received both her BFA and MFA in Fine Arts, Blinkhorn now teaches for her alma mater, Georgia State University, while pursuing her own visual and performative bodies of work. Her visual and performative works are rooted in body positivity and identity advocating for individuals indie disabled and LGBTQ+ communities. Blinkhorn, who is disabled herself, is determined to be a voice for those in her community and be a body that represents self love, determination and thriving beyond expectation. Her performances have been called abrasively comical, educational, emotional, and an honest portrayal of what it means to be living disability.

Blinkhorn has performed at Rapid Pulse and the Bubbly Creek Performance Festivals, Chicago, Illinois: INVERSE Performance Festival, Fayetteville, Arkansas: Art in Odd Places, New York, New York: PASEO Performance Festival, Taos, New Mexico. She has received grants from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts in New York and the Artist Fellowship, Inc. in New York.

 

Jillian Marie Browning is an interdisciplinary artist pursuing themes of feminism, identity, and the contemporary black experience. Born in Ocala, Florida she received her Bachelor of Science degree in Photography from the University of Central Florida in 2012 and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Studio Art from Florida State University in 2015. She has had her work shown nationally as well as been included in the permanent collection of the Center for Photography at Woodstock and the University of Maryland’s David C. Driskell Center For The Study of Visual Arts and Culture Of African Americans and the African Diaspora. She enjoys puppies, comic books, the color pink, and militant feminism. She currently works for The School of Art and Art History at the University of Florida.

Kate Laster

She/her

 


KATE LASTER is an interdisciplinary artist and educator.

Born in Anchorage and raised all over Alaska from Utqiagvik to Juneau, a sense of place is tethered to her practice. She received a Bachelor of Arts at Evergreen State College in 2015 and in 2019 she received a MA+MFA in History & Theory of Contemporary Art and Studio Art with an emphasis in Printmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute. Her thesis, GENTRIFICATION OF THE DEAD: How The Displacement Of Cemeteries Paved The Way For Rethinking Monuments In San Francisco, was a site specific praxis of art-making and research.

She has shown her work in California, Washington, New Mexico, Vermont, Utah, Alaska and Pennsylvania as well as internationally in Berlin and Osaka. Laster has recently been an A.I.R. at the Vermont Studio Center, In Cahoots, Open Windows Cooperative, Cisco Home of the Brave and has an upcoming studio residency at Kala.

Collaboration is an essential heartbeat to Laster’s practice. She has worked with Woosh Kinaadeiyí, the SF Poster Syndicate, Palace of Trash, Resolana, and with her collaborator, Steph Kudisch as Hevra Kadisha (חֶבְרָה קַדִישָא).

Kate Donnelly

She/her

 

I am an artist and educator working at the intersection of feminism and care. Synthesizing documentary, conceptual, and surreal forms, I explore notions of fragmentation, constructs of happiness, ageism, and feminist consciousness through performance, installation, sound, and video. With a focus on the reproduction and position of women in the role of caregiver, I use humor as a central device to disrupt sentimental notions of the labor of love. I received my MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and BFA from Rhode Island School of Design. Recent exhibitions include Paadmaan Video Event in Tehran, Iran, and AIR's 10th Biennial in Brooklyn, NY. My awards include grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Vermont Arts Council, the NEA and the Vermont Community Foundation and a full fellowship from Vermont Studio Center. My current endeavors include the founding of the artist run space Snake House in Burlington, Vermont and Single Channel, A quarterly event highlighting the history, practitioners, and genres of the moving image and time based media through collaborative viewings and discussions.

Leia Genis

She/her

 

Leia Genis (b. 1997) is a graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design with degrees in Painting and Sculpture. Genis is an emerging artist hoping to create a professional career path in the art community as a working studio artist and a curator. She has had the opportunity to spend time abroad in France, a place she hopes to one day call home. Genis' work has been exhibited at MINT Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia as well as the online Linus Gallery based in Los Angeles, California. In addition to being a practicing artist, she is also an award-winning classical pianist.

Linda Costa

She/her

 

Brazilian born light painter Linda Costa immigrated to the United States in childhood. The artist visually employs magical realism in exploring topics like spirituality, immigration and empowerment via long exposure photography. She aims her lens at our soul, tapping into our unique divine magic. Her images are mirrors to explore deeper into ourselves by facing sacred visions of each other.
She first experienced light painting in 2001 at Barry University in Florida, and later mastered her skills in Atlanta, Ga. There she exhibited locally while collaborating with artists in grant-funded projects such as Banho de Luz: a light bath ritual (2012), and Vicarious Engagement (2016). Three works from her 2014 solo
series Transcend were acquired to Fulton County Arts and Culture’s permanent collection. Her Divine Feminine series (2015) explored performance art with the accompanying ritual piece Homage to Oxum.
She’s a former founding member of the Studios at 5663, in Pinellas Park, FL. In 2018 Emory University’s Center for Creativity & Arts, in Atlanta, GA, selected her for their Community Impact Artist award. She has lived with her family in Tampa Bay since 2015, where she continues to shoot and show both locally and
nationally.

 

Las Hermanas Iglesias is the project-based collaboration of Lisa and Janelle Iglesias. Born in Queens, New York to Norwegian and Dominican immigrants, their multidisciplinary work explores issues of hybridity, social participation and family. In addition to their individual practices, the two have collaborated on genre-blurring projects for over fifteen years. Their collaboration has evolved to incorporate a variety of relationships and structures for collectivity, including the creation of textile projects and performances with their mother, Bodhild Iglesias. Las Hermanas 'work has been shown widely including El Museo del Barrio, Queens Museum, Abrons Art Center, NMSU Art Museum, ASU Art Museum and the ACME Lab at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. The team have been artists in residence at LMCC’s Paris program, Fanoon: Center for Print Research at VCUQ in Qatar, StoneLeaf Retreat and in New York and the New Roots Foundation in Guatemala. Their work has been supported by the Queens Council for the Arts, NYFA, The National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures and featured on Bomb-blog, Huffington Post and in the NY Times. Lisa recently joined the faculty of Art Studio as an Associate Professor at Mount Holyoke College and Janelle is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Visual Arts at UCSD.

Makeda Jean Lewis

she/her/hers

 

Makeda Lewis is an artist and arts administrator based out of Atlanta, GA.

Mär Martinez

she/her

 

Mär Martinez is an interdisciplinary artist specializing in sculptural painting. Her work dissects dominance, aggression and power dynamics through the lens of a culturally-enforced binary system. She is pursuing a BFA in Painting and Art History at the University of Central Florida.
Selected Awards include: Jewish Art Salon Student Fellow, FusionFest Best in Show Award, Order of Pegasus Finalist, Katherine K. & Jacob Holzer Art Scholarship, Frank Lloyd Wright Scholar Recipient, and the Miniature Fine Arts Society Award. 2020 Solo Exhibitions include: FRACTURE, Florida, Illusions of Safety, Pennsylvania, and Schism, Florida. Selected 2020 Exhibitions include: B20: Wiregrass Biennial, Alabama, Feminine/ Masculine, Hungary, 2020 College Invitational, Indiana, and Artfields 2020, South Carolina. Residencies include: The Spruce, Pennsylvania, and Temporary Stay, Florida. She can be reached at www.marmartinezart.com or @meatvoid on Instagram.

Melissa Huang

she/her

 

Born in Chicago, IL, Melissa Huang received her BFA in Fine Arts Studio from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Currently, Melissa attends Georgia State University for her MFA in Drawing and Painting (expected May 2021). Her paintings and videos study the desire, failure, and dissonance associated with portraying an idealized self for an increasingly digital audience. Melissa has an upcoming solo exhibition at the Marietta Cobb Museum of Art. Her work has been featured in publications including Fresh Paint Magazine, Art House Press, and Stone Canoe. Melissa is a founding member of the Politits Art Coalition, a feminist art group that exhibits collaboratively and curates an annual Women’s Work exhibition. You can see more of Melissa’s artwork on Instagram (@melissahuangart).

Molly Hassler

She/They

 

Molly Hassler is an interdisciplinary artist, often embracing collaboration and primarily using drawing and fibers techniques to mine the complex relation between representation and identity as a queer person in the Midwest.

Hassler is a 2020 recipient of the Vermont Studio Center Residency Merit Grant, and Mary L. Nohl Suitcase Grant. They have shown their work in exhibitions including Ortega Y Gasset Projects in Brooklyn, New York, The Jackson Dinsdale Art Center in Hastings, Nebraska as well as local galleries. Currently working as a teaching Artist in Residence with Lynden Sculpture Garden, they carry out multiple community based projects in Milwaukee Public Schools.

 

Parker Thornton is an artist and writer who lives and works in Atlanta, GA. She earned her BA in English Literature and Studio Art from Oglethorpe University in 2013 and her MFA in Photography from Georgia State University in 2020. Her practice ranges from lens-based media to sculpture, writing, and performance. She has exhibited work nationally at Whitespace, Historic Oakland Cemetery, and SOUP Experimental. Parker was the 2020 winner of the Andrew M. West Scholarship at Georgia State University. In 2019, she was an artist in residence at Burren College of Art in Ballyvaughan, Ireland. That year she was also granted a scholarship to attend Anderson Ranch Art Center, and won Best in Show at Day and Night Projects.

 

Sara Santamaria is a Multidisciplinary Visual Artist from Madrid, Spain. She earned an Associate Degree in International Relations from (IES) Africa in Madrid, and a minor in Art and Design from Escuela de Arte N2 also in Madrid. Seeking to amplify her perspectives as well as her network, she decided to travel abroad to experience the world as a form of education. Between 2009-2013, she participated in multiple work & travel experiences, art residencies, internships and assistantships across England, France, and Canada.

She came to Atlanta in 2014 where she earned a BFA in Fine Arts with a concentration in Sculpture and ceramics at Georgia State University. She is a 2015-16 Hugely Artist Fellowship recipient and a 2017-2019 resident artist for The Creatives Program. In 2015 she co-founded Brutal Studio, an all-lady run design and build studio in Atlanta. Her work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions at MOCA GA, MINT Gallery, Atlanta international Airport, Atlanta City Council, Woodruff Park, Showerhause Gallery, Swan Coach House Gallery and in publications such as AJC, NPR, and ArtsAtl.

Shane Dedman

they/them

 

Shane Dedman (they/them) is a filmmaker + writer living and working in Atlanta, GA. They grew up in rural Central Florida, found their outlet of creativity through poetry, drawing, and theatre, and came to the city of Atlanta to further their education. They received their B.F.A. in Photography from Georgia State University in 2016. Their work is concerned with representation and the universalization of creativity.
After graduation, they taught art in juvenile detention centers in Georgia, art handled in the South East, and founded a community of poets called Feedback Poetry Collective. After moving back to Atlanta from Berlin, they have since been video based out of space and resource restrictions. They work in collaboration with indie filmmakers and write about their experiences in creative non-fiction and screenplay formats. Dedman enjoys making music, reading theory, reviewing film festivals for publications, and playing local pool tables while traveling.
Dedman has screened films at local film festivals including LadyFest and Out on Film as well as on Facebook Live and at NOFLASH Film Festival 2020. They are published in Oz Magazine, Wussy Magazine, Analog Cookbook and FloroMancy, and they distribute self-made zines. They have participated in residencies with Welcome Hill Studios, The Ionion Center for the Arts and Culture, Joshua Tree Highlands, and most recently TAR Project.

 

My family history and present day discovery of motherhood.

My art practice has become a menu with daily specials.

Sofía Ortiz

she/her

 

Sofia Ortiz (Mexico City, 1988) Sofia holds a MFA from RISD (2017) and a BA from Yale University (2011). Her work focuses on the changing narratives, both historically and culturally, surrounding the natural world: how we define it and what those definitions reveal about our species. She is a two-time recipient of FONCA Jóvenes Creadores national grant, and was awarded residencies in China, México, Colombia and United States. She was most recently a resident at Vermont Studio Center, as a Hellen Frankenthaler Foundation fellow. She has exhibited her work in solo shows in Mexico and in multiple group shows around the world.

Soudeh Dadras

she/her

 

Soude Dadras is an artist, curator, and educator living and working in Atlanta, Georgia and is an MFA candidate at Georgia State University. She was born in Iran and graduated from Islamic Azad University with a bachelor’s degree in Persian Rugs, and a concentration in restoration of antique and historic hand-woven textiles. Over the past five years, Dadras have been working on her curatorial project, “Ongoing Conversation.” The mission of the project is “to bring together disparate voices in the visual arts through an international purview in order to examine cross cultural similarities of the human condition.”

Tatiana K.

she/her

 

Tatiana Kitchen, aged 25 is an visual artist from Jacksonville, Fl and alumni of Douglas Anderson school of the arts. Her works feature a vibrant palette of colors, shapes, and seemingly other worldly beings. With acrylic paint being her medium of choice, she has developed what she considers to be an art style emanating divine femininity, with the majority of her art being inspired by the life force of the universe, and the contributions and influence of humanity within that system; as well as illustrating transformation on multiple levels relating to the human experience.
"As people, we all have experienced pain of some sort. Physical pain, emotional pain, the pain of loss or the pain feeling as though we don't belong amongst others. I take my pain and channel it into my art, turning it into joyful, colorful scenes full of life and energy."
Tatiana believes art to be her saving grace. As a person with a physical disability, she feels as though being able to focus on the developent of her artistic skills has been one of the main things that has kept her optimistic. Instead allowing herself to become immersed in the limitations that her disability could have possibly set for her, she has instead become immersed in all of the possibilties and opportunities her art has brought, and in turn has allowed her passion and charcter to define who she is.
Tatiana has exhibited art in Connecticut, Tallahasse, Florida, and Miami during art basel. As well as collaborating on a mural within the Wynwood district of Miami. She has also sold a multitude of original paintings to private collectors throughout the US and is currently developing her skills as a muralist with a growing number of murals throughout Jacksonville Florida.

 

Atlanta, GA based artist Tokie Rome-Taylor's photography career began early, where at the age of 18, she was given the honor of creating portraits of Coretta Scott King for the book, The Many Faces of Sweet Auburn. Rome-Taylors' work  explores representation through themes of  adornment, memory, spirituality and time. She draws inspiration and influence from an eclectic range of time periods, artists, and cultures. Key influencers are Old Renaissance Master painters, along with Harlem Renaissance photographer James Van Der Zee and afro-futurism/afro-surrealism . She is additionally influenced  by a love of culture,  and vintage artifacts/clothing. 

 Rome-Taylor's work has been published in Behind the Shutter Magazine as well as Art-Diction  Magazine. She has been featured on several podcasts discussing her practice including StudioNoize and National Black Arts Festival:ReImagined. She  is a Funds for Teachers Fellowship recipient, studying photography in Santa Fe, New Mexico and in San Francisco, California. She is an Honorable Mention recipient for the International Photography Awards (2019)- sponsored by the Lucie Foundation. She is a 2019 recipient of the 2019 Virginia Twinam Smith Purchase Award.

 

Vivian Liddell is an interdisciplinary artist in Athens, Georgia who works with painting, fiber and craft techniques, sculpture, printmaking, photography, animation and sound. Born in Memphis, Tennessee, she received her M.F.A. in Painting from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and an M.S. in Teaching from Pace University in Manhattan. She lived in New York City for almost a decade before returning to Athens, Georgia to set up her studio practice. In 2019, she was shortlisted for the Hopper Prize and has exhibited her work extensively over the past decade including at the Wiregrass Museum and the Macon Museum of Arts & Sciences. She has had two recent solo exhibitions of her “Men” series at the 621 Gallery in Tallahassee, FL and at Versa Gallery in Chattanooga, TN with reviews and features in BURNAWAY, ArtsATL, Unsweetened Magazine, CommonCreativATL, Number, Inc., and Foundwork. Liddell hosts the podcast, Peachy Keen, interviewing women on art and the South and is an Asst. Professor of Painting and Drawing at the University of North Georgia, specializing in feminist theory and criticism in contemporary art and craft media in painting.