Pat Shannon, October - November 2026
Pat Shannon is a Boston based visual artist who uses objects, photography, text and moving image to create quiet ephemeral works that touch on questions of presence, memory and shared emotional understanding.
Pat Shannon is a Boston based visual artist who uses objects, photography, text and moving image to create quiet ephemeral works that touch on questions of presence, memory and shared emotional understanding.
She is a graduate of The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University and also holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Northeastern University.
She’s exhibited in regional museums, academic venues, galleries, non-profit spaces and at the Hotel des Arts, Mediterranean Contemporary Art Center, Toulon France.
Her work is held in private collections and she was awarded a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship Grant in Sculpture/Installation/ New Genres on multiple occasions. Her work has been published in “Paper Works” by Sandu Cultural Media in Gangzhou, China and “Villissima!: des artistes et des villes” by Guillaume Monsaingeon, Editions Parentheses, Marseille, France.
Visit Pat’s Instagram here.
Photo credit: Meg Alexander
Jessica Lanay, September - October 2026
Jessica Lanay (She/They) is a Black feminist interdisciplinary writer, poet, and art journalist raised in Key West, Florida. Their/Her debut hybrid poetry collection, am•phib•ian won the 2020 Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Prize judged by Toi Derricotte from Broadside Lotus Press.
Jessica Lanay (She/They) is a Black feminist interdisciplinary writer, poet, and art journalist raised in Key West, Florida. Their/Her debut hybrid poetry collection, am•phib•ian won the 2020 Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Prize judged by Toi Derricotte from Broadside Lotus Press.
They/She is a Cave Canem and Callaloo Fellow. Their/Her poetry can be found in Indiana Review, Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, and others. They/She has performed her poetry at the Brooklyn Museum, The Cave Canem and Bowery Presents First Book series, and with Brooklyn Poets. Their/Her personal and craft essays can be found in Salt Hill Journal and Black Warrior Review.
Lanay's art writing can currently be found in BOMB Magazine where she has interviewed artists such as El Anatsui, Howardena Pindell, Vanessa German, and Shikeith, among others.
Their/Her art criticism can also be found in catalog contributions for The Andy Warhol Museum's exhibition Fantasy America, Nona Faustine’s monograph White Shoes, and the Washington Project for the Arts exhibition curated by Tsedaye Makonnen Black Women As/And The Living Archive. They/She has a Bachelor of Arts in Art History, a Master of Arts in Caribbean Studies, and a Master of Fine Arts in poetry.
Visit Jessica’s website here.
Author Photo and Book Cover Art by Jessica Lanay
Vandana Jain, October - November 2026
Vandana Jain is an artist and textile designer based in Brooklyn, NY. She received her Studio Art degree from New York University and went on to study Textile Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
Watan, 2025
Woven plastic bags, wool shawl, stones
18 x 14 x 1 inches
Vandana Jain is an artist and textile designer based in Brooklyn, NY. She received her Studio Art degree from New York University and went on to study Textile Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
She recently shifted to a studio practice that brings together found materials and textile techniques, both on and off the loom. Her work explores the intersections of labor, cost, and value, and how this affects what we make, and what we throw away.
Visit Vandana’s website here.
Stephani Maari Booker, September - October 2026
Stephani Maari Booker is surviving the fire, plague and wrath of 2020s Minneapolis, MN, by creating works for the page and the stage in which she wrestles with her multiple marginalized identities: African American, lesbian, lower-class and nerdy.
Photo by Anna Min
Stephani Maari Booker is surviving the fire, plague and wrath of 2020s Minneapolis, MN, by creating works for the page and the stage in which she wrestles with her multiple marginalized identities: African American, lesbian, lower-class and nerdy.
She is a recipient of a 2024 McKnight Fellowship for Writers Administered by the Loft and a 2024 Minnesota State Arts Board Creative Individuals Grant. She has poetry, nonfiction and science fiction in many publications.
Visit Stephanie’s website here.
This residency opportunity was made possible through the generous support of the McKnight Foundation and Artist Communities Alliance.
About the McKnight Artist & Culture Bearer Fellowships Program
Founded on the belief that Minnesota thrives when its artists and culture bearers thrive, the McKnight Foundation’s arts and culture program is one of the oldest and largest of its kind in the country. Support for individual working Minnesota artists and culture bearers has been a cornerstone of the program since it began in 1982. The McKnight Artist & Culture Bearer Fellowships Program provides annual, unrestricted cash awards to outstanding mid-career Minnesota artists in 15 different creative disciplines. Program partner organizations administer the fellowships and structure them to respond tothe unique challenges of different disciplines. Currently, the foundation contributes about $2.8 million per year to its statewide fellowships. For more information, visit mcknight.org/artistfellowships.
About ACA
Artist Communities Alliance (ACA) is the international service organization for artist residency programs and artist-centered organizations. For 35 years, ACA has centered artists and artist residencies, providing them with tools, knowledge-sharing, resources, and frameworks to create and sustain inclusive, accessible, just, and joyful environments. We work to unite people and inspire the field.
About the McKnight Foundation
The McKnight Foundation, a Minnesota-based family foundation, advances a more just, creative, and abundant future where people and planet thrive. Established in 1953, the McKnight Foundation is deeply committed to advancing climate solutions in the Midwest; building an equitable and inclusive Minnesota; and supporting the arts and culture in Minnesota, neuroscience, and global food systems.
José Santiago Pérez, June - July 2026
José Santiago Pérez is an artist and educator based in Chicago who weaves plastics into containers of time, vessels of memory, speculative portals, voids of desire, and spaces of belonging.
José Santiago Pérez is an artist and educator based in Chicago who weaves plastics into containers of time, vessels of memory, speculative portals, voids of desire, and spaces of belonging. José is a 2024 Fiber Arts Fellow at Colorado College, a 2022 Resident Fellow at the Lunder Institute for American Art, and a 2019-2020 HATCH resident at Chicago Artists Coalition.
His work has been supported by an Illinois Arts Council Agency grant, a DCASE Individual Artist Program grant from the City of Chicago, and a Chicago Artists Coalition SPARK grant. Recent solo exhibitions include Shine/Shrink at Coburn Gallery in Colorado Springs, Shimmerings of the Not Yet (T)Here at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art in Grand Rapids and Portalisms at Boundary in Chicago. José has presented craft and performance based work in group exhibitions in Chicago, the Midwest, and across the country.
Features and reviews of his work have appeared in Artforum International, Basketry+ Magazine, Sixty Inches from Center, Newcity Art, and the Archives + Futures Podcast. He holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he teaches in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies.
Visit José’s website here.
Roger Q. Mason, June - July 2026
Roger Q. Mason (they/them) is an award-winning playwright, performer and educator celebrated for visionary works like Lavender Men, which have earned prestigious accolades including the 2024 McKnight National Playwright Commission and the inaugural Dramatists Guild Foundation Catalyst Grant.
Photo Credit: Sara Martin
Roger Q. Mason (they/them) is an award-winning playwright, performer and educator celebrated for visionary works like Lavender Men, which have earned prestigious accolades including the 2024 McKnight National Playwright Commission and the inaugural Dramatists Guild Foundation Catalyst Grant.
A versatile thought leader and CalArts faculty member, Mason holds advanced degrees from Princeton, Middlebury, and Northwestern, and has been hailed by The Brooklyn Rail as one of the most significant theatrical voices of the decade.
View Roger’s work here.
This residency opportunity was made possible through the generous support of the McKnight Foundation and Artist Communities Alliance.
About the McKnight Artist & Culture Bearer Fellowships Program
Founded on the belief that Minnesota thrives when its artists and culture bearers thrive, the McKnight Foundation’s arts and culture program is one of the oldest and largest of its kind in the country. Support for individual working Minnesota artists and culture bearers has been a cornerstone of the program since it began in 1982. The McKnight Artist & Culture Bearer Fellowships Program provides annual, unrestricted cash awards to outstanding mid-career Minnesota artists in 15 different creative disciplines. Program partner organizations administer the fellowships and structure them to respond tothe unique challenges of different disciplines. Currently, the foundation contributes about $2.8 million per year to its statewide fellowships. For more information, visit mcknight.org/artistfellowships.
About ACA
Artist Communities Alliance (ACA) is the international service organization for artist residency programs and artist-centered organizations. For 35 years, ACA has centered artists and artist residencies, providing them with tools, knowledge-sharing, resources, and frameworks to create and sustain inclusive, accessible, just, and joyful environments. We work to unite people and inspire the field.
About the McKnight Foundation
The McKnight Foundation, a Minnesota-based family foundation, advances a more just, creative, and abundant future where people and planet thrive. Established in 1953, the McKnight Foundation is deeply committed to advancing climate solutions in the Midwest; building an equitable and inclusive Minnesota; and supporting the arts and culture in Minnesota, neuroscience, and global food systems.
C. C. Ann Chen, June - July 2026
C. C. Ann Chen is an artist and educator based in Chicago, IL. Her work stems from architecture and landscape, exploring perceptual translations and misinterpretations of place and time.
C. C. Ann Chen is an artist and educator based in Chicago, IL. Her work stems from architecture and landscape, exploring perceptual translations and misinterpretations of place and time.
Projects range from direct observation to site-specific work, engaging each landscape with an open, experiment-based approach.
Visit C. C.’s Instagram here.
C. C. Ann Chen: Whereabouts
Gallery view of solo exhibition at Tiger Strikes Asteroid, May 24-July 5, 2025
Photograph courtesy of artist
Jean Shin, May - June 2026
Jean Shin is known for her sprawling and often public sculptures, transforming accumulations of discarded objects into powerful monuments that interrogate our complex relationship between material consumption, collective identity, and community engagement.
Artist Jean Shin working to create her exhibition "Perch" at Appleton Farms as part of The Trustees Art Commission (Jesse Costa/WBUR)
Jean Shin is known for her sprawling and often public sculptures, transforming accumulations of discarded objects into powerful monuments that interrogate our complex relationship between material consumption, collective identity, and community engagement. Often working cooperatively within a community, Shin amasses vast collections of everyday objects—Mountain Dew bottles, mobile phones, 35mm slides—while researching their history of use, circulation, and environmental impact. Distinguished by this labor-intensive and participatory process, Shin’s creations become catalysts for communities to confront social and ecological challenges.
Born in Seoul, South Korea, and raised in the U.S., Shin works in Brooklyn and Hudson Valley, New York. Her work has been widely exhibited and collected in over 150 major museums and cultural institutions, including solo exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington DC, and the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, where in 2020 she was the first Korean American woman artist featured in a solo exhibition. Shin has received numerous awards, including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant and the Frederic Church Award for her contributions to American art and culture. Her works have been highlighted in The New York Times and Sculpture Magazine, among others.
Visit Jean’s website here.
Jean Shin, Sea Change, 2023
Plastic water bottles, zip ties, painted armature
Installation in Diani, Kenya in collaboration with HERI and Stanford University
Sharmistha Ray, May - June 2026
Sharmistha Ray (they/them) is a visual artist, art critic, curator, and professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Their artistic practice uses modes of abstraction to explore imagery related to Hindu and Buddhist cosmologies, the patterning and ornamentation of South Asian crafts and sacred architecture in relationship to global modernisms and queer futurity.
Sharmistha Ray in front of their painting. Credit: Zachary Riggleman
Sharmistha Ray (they/them) is a visual artist, art critic, curator, and professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Their artistic practice uses modes of abstraction to explore imagery related to Hindu and Buddhist cosmologies, the patterning and ornamentation of South Asian crafts and sacred architecture in relationship to global modernisms and queer futurity.
Working primarily in painting and drawing, they have also made work in sculpture and installation, curated projects, and written prolifically on art. In addition to their solo work, they co-founded the spiritualist feminist art collective Hilma’s Ghost which acts as a collaborative model for research, artistic production, pedagogy, and community.
Ray’s work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions and projects internationally at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; Galería RGR, Mexico City; Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, CT; Carrie Secrist Gallery, Chicago, IL; Godwin-Ternbach Museum, Queens, NY; The Parallax Center, Portland, OR; The Armory Show, New York, NY; Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, NY; and Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai, India, among many others.
Ray is the recipient of the Montblanc Young Artist Worldwide Patronage Award, TED Fellowship, and Joan Mitchell MFA Grant, and has been an artist-in-residence at Wassaic Project, Wassaic, NY; Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York, NY; and Art Cake, Brooklyn, NY.
Reviews of their work have appeared in The New York Times, The Brooklyn Rail, Artnet, Hyperallergic, Art India, Take on Art, and TimeOut Mumbai. Ray received a dual degree MFA in Painting and MS in Theory, Criticism and History of Art, Design and Architecture from Pratt Institute and BA from Williams College.
Visit Sharmistha’s website here.
dahn gim, May - June 2026
My work reflects the dual perspectives of being both an insider and an outsider—living as a"forever foreigner." Shaped by the flux of immigrant status, I explore the hybrid existence with transformation and adaptation through found, recycled, and organic materials.
My work reflects the dual perspectives of being both an insider and an outsider—living as a"forever foreigner." Shaped by the flux of immigrant status, I explore the hybrid existence with transformation and adaptation through found, recycled, and organic materials.
I ground my practice in a commitment to self-preservation through process, reflecting the emotional and psychological tensions of presence and absence, self and other, comfort and discomfort.
Visit dahn’s website here.
Strata: 2016-19 (2024), 4.5 x 4.5 x 98", Legal documents
This residency opportunity was made possible through the generous support of the McKnight Foundation and Artist Communities Alliance.
About the McKnight Artist & Culture Bearer Fellowships Program
Founded on the belief that Minnesota thrives when its artists and culture bearers thrive, the McKnight Foundation’s arts and culture program is one of the oldest and largest of its kind in the country. Support for individual working Minnesota artists and culture bearers has been a cornerstone of the program since it began in 1982. The McKnight Artist & Culture Bearer Fellowships Program provides annual, unrestricted cash awards to outstanding mid-career Minnesota artists in 15 different creative disciplines. Program partner organizations administer the fellowships and structure them to respond tothe unique challenges of different disciplines. Currently, the foundation contributes about $2.8 million per year to its statewide fellowships. For more information, visit mcknight.org/artistfellowships.
About ACA
Artist Communities Alliance (ACA) is the international service organization for artist residency programs and artist-centered organizations. For 35 years, ACA has centered artists and artist residencies, providing them with tools, knowledge-sharing, resources, and frameworks to create and sustain inclusive, accessible, just, and joyful environments. We work to unite people and inspire the field.
About the McKnight Foundation
The McKnight Foundation, a Minnesota-based family foundation, advances a more just, creative, and abundant future where people and planet thrive. Established in 1953, the McKnight Foundation is deeply committed to advancing climate solutions in the Midwest; building an equitable and inclusive Minnesota; and supporting the arts and culture in Minnesota, neuroscience, and global food systems.
Soulaf Abas, May - June 2026
Soulaf was born and raised in Damascus, Syria. In 2008 she received her Bachelors of Fine Arts from Indiana State University. Then, she returned to Syria and taught art at the Arab European University. She also spent some time translating books and articles in Arabic and English.
Soulaf was born and raised in Damascus, Syria. In 2008 she received her Bachelors of Fine Arts from Indiana State University. Then, she returned to Syria and taught art at the Arab European University. She also spent some time translating books and articles in Arabic and English.
In 2010, Soulaf returned to Indiana State University to get her masters in Fine Arts. After she received her MFA in painting in 2013, she taught part time at Indiana State University.
Soulaf went back to visit her family in Damascus-Syria in the summer of 2012, a year after the revolution began. Upon her return from Syria, she started creating images in painting and printmaking that depicted what she’d experienced. She continues to explore the effects of loss and trauma in her oil painting and printmaking works.
Her work was exhibited nationally and internationally. She also received multiple residencies and awards for her work like the Social Justice Residency in Santa Fe, NM, and multiple ELCE Grants from Indiana State University.
Soulaf lives and works in Terre Haute, Indiana with her partner, dogs, cat, and many plants.
Visit Soulaf'’s website here.
Matt Marble, April 2026
Matt Marble is an artist, author, media producer and director of the American Museum of Paramusicology ("brilliant and humbling," The Paris Review). Both creatively and through historical research, his work explores the inspired intersections of art and metaphysics and the intuitive disciplines they mutually employ.
Matt Marble at Black Hole (2023), photo by Micah Silver
Matt Marble is an artist, author, media producer and director of the American Museum of Paramusicology ("brilliant and humbling," The Paris Review). Both creatively and through historical research, his work explores the inspired intersections of art and metaphysics and the intuitive disciplines they mutually employ.
Matt is the author of “Buddhist Bubblegum: Esotericism in the Creative Process of Arthur Russell” ("groundbreaking work," New York Times), and the producer/host of the podcast “Secret Sound.” His writing, research, media production, and personal archive constitute the American Museum of Paramusicology (AMP), through which he also publishes the monthly AMP Journal.
Matt’s visual art has been presented by Greensboro Project Space, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Jersey City Museum, Museum of Modern Art (Barcelona), VAE Raleigh, and the Philosophical Research Society.
Visit Matt’s website here.
"Unknowable Music" (2023), acrylic painting by Matt Marble
Yatika Starr Fields, April 2026
Yatika Starr Fields is a painter and visual artist based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A member of the Osage, Cherokee, and Muscogee Nations, Fields grounds his work in Indigenous identity while pushing the boundaries of contemporary Native art.
Photograph by Joseph Rushmore
Yatika Starr Fields is a painter and visual artist based in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
A member of the Osage, Cherokee, and Muscogee Nations, Fields grounds his work in Indigenous identity while pushing the boundaries of contemporary Native art.
His dynamic, color-saturated compositions often blend landscapes and figurative elements with cultural and historical motifs, inviting viewers to explore layered narratives and find personal connections to land, place and time.
Through this interplay, Fields creates a space for dialogue one that bridges individual experience with shared memory and collective history.
View Yatika’s work here.
Jory Drew, April 2026
Jory Drew is an interdisciplinary artist and educator working across ceramics, painting, installation, and text to examine race, gender, and power. Their work investigates how capitalism mediates intimacy and shapes desire.
Jory Drew is an artist and educator whose multidisciplinary practice explores how identity, memory, and social histories shape the possibilities of intimacy, kinship, and care within Black and queer life. Working across sculpture, installation, video, and performance, Drew examines the residues of systemic inequality while imagining alternative networks of support and survival. His work often reuses everyday materials — housing debris, domestic artifacts, and archival fragments — to reconstruct personal and collective narratives that challenge cultural erasure. Through these gestures, Drew turns vulnerability into a space of resistance, envisioning worlds in which Black life is centered, legible, and loved. Drew (b. 1992, Austin, TX) is a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (BFA, 2015) and the University of California Los Angeles (MFA, 2025) and has recently exhibited at Art/Space 114 (Los Angeles, 2026), KITA Gallery (Los Angeles, 2025), and Murmurs (Los Angeles, 2023).
Visit Jory’s instagram here.
Rachel Gloria Adams, February - March 2026
Rachel Gloria Adams is a multidisciplinary artist living in Portland, ME. Adams has developed a vibrant, graphic pattern-based visual language filled with references to the natural world and motherhood that possesses an heirloom quality. Her work takes form by way of quilting, painting, design and murals.
Rachel Gloria Adams is a multidisciplinary artist living in Portland, ME. Adams has developed a vibrant, graphic pattern-based visual language filled with references to the natural world and motherhood that possesses an heirloom quality. Her work takes form by way of quilting, painting, design and murals.
Adams moved to Maine in 2005 to pursue her BFA from Maine College of Art & Design. She has exhibited artwork at the Portland Museum of Art, Center for Maine Contemporary Art and Dowling Walsh. Her work has been acquired by the Farnsworth Museum and Portland Museum of Art. In addition to her studio practice, Adams has been commissioned to create murals for several businesses as well as the Children’s Museum of Portland, Farnsworth Museum and Worcester Art Museum.
Visit Rachel’s website here.
Olivia Berke, February - March 2026
Olivia Berke is an emerging artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. She received a B.A. in Studio Art and Art History from Oberlin College with an emphasis on sculpture and ephemeral art in the Early Modern period.
HumanDogHorse, 2025
Olivia Berke is an emerging artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. She received a B.A. in Studio Art and Art History from Oberlin College with an emphasis on sculpture and ephemeral art in the Early Modern period.
Her practice is centered around every day materials as portals to the imagination and finding wonder in the mundane.
Her work has been a part of several group exhibitions, most recently at The Sheerly Touch-Ya/Shisanwu Warehouse in Glendale, Queens and Voltz Clarke Gallery in New York, NY.
Visit Olivia’s website here.
Dream Paintings, 2024
James Eric Francis Sr., February - March 2026
James Eric Francis Sr. is a prominent member of the Penobscot Nation who serves as the tribe's Director of Cultural and Historic Preservation and Tribal Historian. His work is dedicated to exploring and preserving the intricate relationship between Maine's Native American peoples and the land.
The Creation of Shad (mάwαməwak)
This painting explores the cultural and natural connections between the land, seasons, and people of the Penobscot Nation. It tells the story of the shad's (mάwαməwak) creation, intertwining Wabanaki oral tradition with the natural cycles of the Penobscot River.
James Eric Francis Sr., a member of the Penobscot Nation, is a multifaceted artist whose work is deeply intertwined with his roles as a historian, cultural preservationist, and tribal leader. His art, which includes painting, photography, filmmaking, and graphic design, is a powerful exploration of the relationship between Maine Native Americans and the landscape, viewed through an indigenous lens.
As a visual artist, Francis creates work that is both historical and deeply personal. He often uses his art to challenge dominant historical narratives and to assert the resilience and continued presence of the Penobscot people. A prime example is his painting "We Walk On; Eternally," where he recreates a genocidal 1755 proclamation from Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Spencer Phips calling for the extermination of the Penobscot people. Across this document, he stamps in blood-red letters the Penobscot word for "we walk on; eternally," a powerful statement of survival and a plea for a new, respectful relationship with the people of Maine.
Francis's painting often incorporates intricate techniques, such as his dot paintings, which he began after being inspired by the methodical process of flint knapping. These paintings, such as "Welcome Home," pay homage to the natural world and Penobscot traditions, often celebrating the return of salmon to the Penobscot River. His work also delves into Penobscot legends and cosmology, as seen in his painting "The Great Penetrating Arrow," which tells the story of how all animals and people sprang from an ash tree shot by the hero Gluskabe. This piece, like much of his art, emphasizes the Penobscot belief that humans are on the same plane as all other living creatures.
His artistic practice extends to photography, filmmaking, and graphics. He co-produced the documentary *Invisible*, which examines racism faced by Native Americans in Maine and the Canadian Maritimes. His photography often takes the form of time-lapses, capturing the beauty of the Maine landscape—from the Penobscot River to Mount Katahdin—and its connection to his ancestors. Francis’s work as a graphic artist and filmmaker further supports his mission to revitalize and preserve Penobscot culture, with his oral history projects bringing to life historical pictures and community stories.
In addition to his creative work, Francis is a renowned curator. He has curated exhibits on Penobscot history at institutions such as the Bangor Museum and Center for History, the Abbe Museum, and Harvard University. His curatorial work, like his art, aims to "re-indigenize" historical landscapes and challenge the absence of Native American narratives in historical depictions.
Francis is working on a graduate degree of the University of Maine's Intermedia Masters of Fine Arts program, and his work as an artist is inextricably linked to his lifelong commitment to cultural preservation and education. He serves as the Director of Cultural and Historic Preservation and Tribal Historian for the Penobscot Nation and is a co-founder and Chair of Local Contexts, an initiative to help Indigenous communities manage their cultural heritage and intellectual property. Through his art and his many professional roles, James Eric Francis Sr. provides a unique and vital perspective on history, place, and the enduring power of Indigenous culture.
Visit Francis’s Instagram page here.
Victoria DelValle, January - February 2026
Victoria “thirteenvic” DelValle (b. 2000) is a Diasporican illustrator, painter, and designer based in Boston, MA. Her practice began in spoken word poetry, performing at Louder Than a Bomb, Brave New Voices, and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University.
Victoria DelValle in the Hallam Studio. Photo by Kerry Constantino.
Victoria “thirteenvic” DelValle (b. 2000) is a Diasporican illustrator, painter, and designer based in Boston, MA. Her practice began in spoken word poetry, performing at Louder Than a Bomb, Brave New Voices, and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University.
She later returned to visual art, earning a BFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts in 2022 and pursuing further education at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Her foundation in writing and performance informs her visual concepts and approach to arts education.
In 2023, she debuted her first solo exhibition, Lost Grief, at Nubian Square Open Studios for the Arts (NOSA). She continued gaining momentum through fellowships with Dunamis, Artists for Humanity and the Arts & Business Council of Greater Boston, and was awarded the Mass Cultural Council’s Grant for Creative Individuals in 2025.
Raised within Boston’s social justice–centered youth arts programs, she values mentorship and the transformative power of creative expression. As a consultant for the City of Boston and Boston Centers for Youth & Families (BCYF), DelValle co-facilitated BCYF Creates, a pilot initiative expanding access to arts programming across the city.
Through her work with young people and her roots in community storytelling, DelValle continues to shape an art practice that is both experimental and personal. She engages accessible, site-specific materials in response to her environment, embracing improvisation as both method and message. Her work reflects the layered realities of cultural memory, emotional inheritance, and transformation—navigated through a diasporic lens. Blending elements of street art, expressionism and surrealism, she invites viewers to confront fear, embrace absurdity, and find wonder within the unfamiliar. Through play, she softens the line between beauty and the grotesque, making difficult truths approachable and encouraging social growth.
Visit Victoria’s website here.
Kyle Downs, January - February 2026
Kyle Downs is an artist that lives in Bowdoinham, ME. Downs received an MFA in sculpture from the Ohio State University, his BFA from Maine College of Art, and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2014.
Kyle Downs in the Split Studio. Photo by Kerry Constantino.
Kyle Downs is an artist that lives in Bowdoinham, ME. Downs received an MFA in sculpture from the Ohio State University, his BFA from Maine College of Art, and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2014. Downs’ work has been included in exhibitions nationally including: Socrates Sculpture Park (NY), Cultural Arts Center (OH), and the Center For Maine Contemporary Art (ME). Downs has taught classes at The School of the Alternative (Black Mountain, NC), Denison University (OH), and Columbus College of Art and Design (OH).
Visit Kyle’s website here.
Shey 'Rí Acu' Rivera Ríos, January - February 2026
Shey 'Rí Acu' Rivera Ríos (they/them) is an interdisciplinary artist and cultural worker who uses social practice, visual art, and performance to create immersive worlds of magic and liberation.
Shey 'Rí Acu' Rivera Ríos in the Pool Room Studio. Photo by Kerry Constantino.
Shey 'Rí Acu' Rivera Ríos (they/them) is an interdisciplinary artist and cultural worker who uses social practice, visual art, and performance to create immersive worlds of magic and liberation. Born and raised in Borikén (Puerto Rico), Rivera has created home and set deep roots in Providence, RI, land of Narragansett and Wampanoag peoples. Rivera is founder of Studio Loba, a production house and consulting firm for cultural projects. They have 15 years of experience in the arts and culture sector, with a specialty on arts and culture for community development and civic engagement. Rivera is committed to art as a catalyst for social change and honoring community lived experience as the knowledge that can help us craft more just and generative futures. Last year, Rivera was selected for Providence Commemoration Lab (2024-25), a one year residency of social practice to engage residents of Providence in reimagining commemoration at the former Columbus Square. Rivera is known for their deeply rooted community engaged work that fosters cultural repair and civic imagination.
Visit Shey’s website here.