Lawrence “Naturel” Atoigue was born in 1983 in Landover, Maryland. Professionally known as Naturel, Atoigue has quickly emerged in today’s postmodern scene. His sharp, triangular illustrations are a futuristic blend of pop and cubism, with a surrealist twist. Considered an influencer himself with a massive social media following, his talents have also attracted the eyes and ears of celebrity clients such as Swizz Beatz, Rihanna, Spike Lee, Paul Rosenberg and LeBron James, among many others. Working directly with Jay-Z on iconic apparel designs, he has also served as Creative Director for global campaigns ranging from brands like Crooks & Castles to Levi’s, as well as working with multi-national brands like Courvoisier and the NFL.
Jorge A. Valdes, aka JAVA, is a self-taught Cuban-American artist, living in New York since 1992. Born in Santiago de Cuba in 1956, he began creating art as a teenager. The use of found objects and broken china in his work traces back to his native country, during a period when supplies were scarce. It’s also a response to a reality that transcended scarcity in a world where neither abundance nor scarcity can express enough about the need of awareness towards a planet requiring all our attention as the only world where we can exist.
“As a youth I used to go treasure hunting to the garbage dumps, where people threw away things, and I started to make sculptures with the objects that I found there,” JAVA recalls. Over time his use of recyclable and unwanted materials became a passion and an identity that continues to mark his work.
In 1992, JAVA left Cuba for Miami, where—despite abundance—he realized that unwanted material was as subjective and magical as in Cuba. In a reaction to the flushing shine of Miami Beach, in a hidden spot of a parking lot, JAVA created a series of found objects sculptures that was shown in Atmosphere Gallery in Miami Beach. Leaving unclaimed whatever didn’t sell, he quickly moved to New York City, where he continued creating art while completing his Masters in Education at Columbia University in 1997.
JAVA’s art has been featured in various galleries and exhibits in the US, Cuba and Italy. He was chosen as the artist for the annual campaign of National Payroll Week, participated in the Southwest Minnesota State University Art Museum exhibit “Reclaimed” and was represented in a documentary about his life and work by DEVA International Film during a solo show at Franklin 54 Gallery in Chelsea, New York, in 2011.
Using everything from crushed cans and broken dishes to abandoned metal and wood, JAVA has created a body of work reminiscent of the mystique and beauty of Santeria, a syncretic religion of West African and Caribbean origin that’s been influenced by Christianity. The artist’s sculptures reference the deities, animals, objects and places related to the ritualistic religion, while the exhibition’s title “Santero” alludes to the priest or maker of Santeria. JAVA’s attitude of “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” is a meaningful one, which he takes seriously in his dedication to the work.
In addition to his activities as a visual artist he has published poetry in “Not Black and White” (Plain View Press, 1996) and a variety of magazines. During his career in teaching, JAVA has continued his passion with art. He became a 2014 Brooklyn Arts Council grantee, receiving the Local Arts Support and Community Arts Fund grants for a public commission. He currently resides in the Bronx, New York, and is active in creating public art and teaching workshops for local youth while continuing his work in the studio.
lauraberth lima is a lens-based visual artist born in the Cape Verde Island of Sao Vicente, West Africa in 1987. She immigrated with her Father, Mother, and two older sisters to Rhode Island where she was educated. lima was very active in the community at a young age. Her commitment to community service, the Pawtucket School Committee (as a student liaison), the Rhode Island Special Olympics and involvement with the Boys and Girls Club of Pawtucket landed her the title of 2005 Youth of the Year for the state of Rhode Island. Awarded the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholarship to attend Providence College, lima earned her Bachelors Degree in Sociology, with a minor in Black Studies. While attending college in Rhode Island, lima worked as the Education Director for the Blue Hill Boys and Girls Club of Dorchester, MA. During her time there, she designed and implemented innovative programming, oversaw the learning center and organized events for the community. lima moved to NYC in 2009 to purse fine art and a career in museum education. She completed an MFA in Photography, Video and Related media at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan and merged her passion for education and art. lima is currently the Interim Family Programs Coordinator at the Brooklyn Museum, a founding member and wellness coordinator for the Love Yourself Project, and a Teaching Artist for the Healing Arts Initiate. lima also creates and performs in the band Pink & Blue. lauraberth lima is a working Artist, Educator, Curator, Dancer, Communicator, Sister, Daughter, Friend, and lover. lauraberth lima seeks to preserve and propel Cape Verdean culture though her fine art practice.
Patrick (b.1982) is an artist and educator based in New York City. Through community based art projects, he co-creates spaces for collaboration, active participation, and the exchange of cultural knowledge.
Patrick’s ongoing project, Mobile Print Power, is a multigenerational mobile print collective based in Corona, Queens. It uses printmaking as a vehicle for collaboration and empowerment. Over the past 2 years the 15 core members of Mobile Print Power have developed a working methodology for engaging their community in the creation of printed work in public space. Patrick’s drawings, prints, and sculptures serve as fieldnotes, documenting the development of this participatory work.
Patrick’s work has been included in group shows at Kunsthalle Galapagos, Brooklyn, NY (2012), MoMA Studio, MoMA Education Space, New York, NY (2013), Plant House Gallery, New York, NY (2013), IPCNY, New York, NY (2014), and Macy Gallery at Teacher’s College, Columbia University, New York, NY (2014).
Community Based Projects include: UpClose: In Your Space, Cairo, Egypt (2009), ArtLearningBank, www.artlearningbank.com, Brooklyn, NY (ongoing), and Mobile Print Power, Immigrant Movement International, Queens, NY (ongoing).
Alexandria Smith (b. 1981, Bronx, NY) earned her BFA in Illustration from Syracuse University, MA in Art Education from New York University, and MFA in Painting and Drawing from Parsons The New School for Design in 2010. Smith is the recipient of numerous awards and residencies including the Golden Foundation Residency, Rush Arts Summer Residency, the Vermont Studio Center Residency and the Fine Arts Work Center Fellowship. Most recently she was awarded the Fountainhead Residency 2015, Fine Arts Work Center Fellowship, and AIR Gallery Fellowship for 2014/15. Recent exhibitions in New York include: Scaramouche Gallery, The Schomburg Center, Thierry Goldberg Gallery and Rush Arts Gallery. Recent press includes the Huffington Post: “Alexandria Smith’s Adorably Grotesque Cartoons Explore What Little Girls Are Made Of”, “Black Artists: 30 Contemporary Artmakers You Should Know Under 40” and “10 Female Artists To Watch in 2013”. Smith lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Cullen Washington Jr. (b. 1972) received his BA from Louisiana State University and his MFA from Tufts University/School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. A 2013 Artist in Residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem, Washington Jr. has exhibited his work widely in group and solo shows nation-wide and abroad including The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Houston, TX; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA; the Jack Bell Gallery and Saatchi Gallery London, UK among other arts venues. In addition to the Studio Museum, Washington Jr. has been an artist in residence at Rush Arts Gallery (2012), Yaddo (2011), and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2010). He was the recipient of a Joan Mitchell Foundation Award in 2009 and a Bartlett and Montague Travel Grant in 2008. Reviews and critical essays of his work appear in Art: 21 Magazine, The New York Times, The International Review of African American Art, The Boston Globe, Art New England and the exhibition catalogue Fore published by the Studio Museum. Cullen’s work can be found in the collections of the Studio Museum in Harlem and Saatchi Gallery.
A native of Gainesville, Florida and graduate of Yale School of Art’s MFA program, Kenya (Robinson) remixes narratives of power as it relates to race, class, and marginalization. Her stylized book covers interweave descriptions of suspense and mystery plots, images of pop culture luminaries, and fictive reviews from revered intellectuals. Jesus Be A Lacefront imagines a duo of Black hairstylists who cultivate a successful weave enterprise by scalping rich white men. Her collages permeate through social boundaries with references to popular culture, academia, the art world, and the social lives of the Black working class.
Chicago artist and SAIC alumni Dana DeGiulio reveals the fragility of structures in her performance work. “Medusa”is a photographic documentation of a performance in which the artist drove a 1996 Buick Lasabre into the wall of The Suburban, an independent exhibition space in Oak Park, Illinois. The artist received permission by the gallery’s co-operator, artist and curator of the 2014 Whitney Biennial Michelle Grabner. The photo depicts the permanently broken facade of the building after the car’s removal; a gaping hole where bricks and wood once separated the interior from the outside world. The literal and metaphorical undoing and transforming of the building reminds us that institutions and structures can be breached.
A graduate of Rhode Island School of Design’s Glass MFA program, Doreen Garner’s performance and sculptural work juxtaposes beautiful and grotesque imagery to complicate the viewer’s visual experience. In a video piece Uniqua Revisited, the artist considers the enduring history of the Black female body as spectacle. Garner dances seductively in a clad white bikini to LL Cool J’s “Doing It,”conjuring the hypersexual Jezebel archetype. A video collage of repulsive imagery — fatty flesh, incisions made to the chest of a corpse, crawling maggots, bloody organs —projects over her. Using her body as a site of investigation, Garner maps new meaning onto her flesh that complicates the iconography and consumption of Black women’s bodies within the American imagination.
Diana Rickard has been beading office supplies and other objects for over a decade and enjoys working with the various colors, textures, sheens, and sizes of all the beads New York City has to offer. She holds a PhD in sociology and is an Assistant Professor of criminal justice at Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY. In addition she studied poetry at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. She has a book on stigma and identity forthcoming from Rutgers University Press. Brooklyn, NY is her home.