LAMAR BAILEY is an Atlanta-native, husband, and father who captures the 

energy and love within Black community through mixed media art. His 

expressive style features loose brushstrokes and abstract textures which 

help convey emotion and movement. He often paints on unconventional 

materials like cardboard and card stock, tactile quality to his pieces that 

adds authenticity and dimension. His art explores the beauty and 

complexity of Black family life centering themes of love, resilience, and 

the everyday moments that shape identity. Through powerful visual 

storytelling, he seeks to honor and uplift Black communities, shining a 

light on both quiet and profound moments that reflect their strength, 

tenderness, and humanity

CANDACE CASTON My work is an archive of remembered locations. Within it I tell personal

stories exploring memory and place. I recall and record segments of the home, vehicle, and surrounding neighborhood, drawing reference from my present-day environment, dreams, and personal photographs to construct remembered spaces of my childhood home before Katrina.

I produce my work through a combination of collage and painting, constructing scenes from both memory and observation. Using paint, hand-painted paper, magazine clippings, and personal photographs, I layer images and textures to build the contents of a room or an outdoor

setting. During this process, I recall the quality of the experience and include lighting, weather, temperature, and objects that come together to create the memory of a place. My practice is guided by a process of discovery, often initiated by memory but not fixed to it. Sometimes I begin with an initial memory and allow it to unfold through the process of making. Other times, I flip

through magazines and found images spark memories and associations that shape the work. As the composition develops, those associations shift and expand, allowing the work to move beyond its point of origin. Color plays a central role in my process. It allows me to describe

changes in time of day, weather, and emotional and psychological states connected to memory. I am inspired by the light, humidity, vegetation, and atmosphere of New Orleans, as well as by the act of remembering itself. Through painting and collage, I explore how memory and place

shape each other and inform my personal identity. In recalling these moments, I find the spaces that shelter us are embedded with personal 

BRITTNEY S. PRICE Brittney S. Price is a fine artist, muralist, and storyteller whose work honors memory, invites healing, and celebrates the complexity of Black life. Born in Palm Springs, shaped by ten years in Los Angeles, and now based in New York, she uses visual language as

both restoration and resistance. Her practice is guided by the West African Adinkra symbol Sankofa and spans murals, mixed media, sculpture, and participatory installations. At its core is a belief that

looking back is essential to moving forward. Price bridges public walls and gallery spaces with intention and care. Her work has appeared at the Palm Springs Art Museum, across the streets of Compton, and in campaigns with Target, Warner Bros, and HBO Max. Notable projects include Lady Inglewood for Target, Choose Joy and Maid N' America at the Palm Springs Art Museum, and a

touring sculptural Ghost created for Bungie’s Destiny 2. Across all platforms, she remains rooted in authentic storytelling and collective testimony. As a certified teaching artist through LACMA and West Hollywood’s Artist Bootcamp, Price extends her practice through education and community engagement. Her workshop series Adinkra & Me fosters intergenerational dialogue and visual literacy in underserved communities, using collage, symbolism, and cultural memory as tools for identity exploration. She has collaborated with organizations such as Keep Your Change, LA Commons, Vitamin Angels, the LA vs Hate campaign, and BLM LA. Her work has been recognized by Google Earth and featured in exhibitions, campaigns, and initiatives that center

equity in the arts. Through every piece, Price creates space for reflection, connection, and the infinite possibilities of reimage.

BROOKE FIERCE BROONER is a contemporary painter whose work explores the intimacy of everyday rituals, the quiet choreography of human connection, and the beauty of Black leisure. Rooted in scenes of domestic life, friendly contests, and cultural memory, her paintings celebrate the ways Black people gather, talk shit, compete, and make each other better by virtue of proximity, love, and shared rhythm. Drawing on personal history and collective traditions, Bronner layers bold color with gestural mark-making to capture the emotional texture of presence spontaneous, structured, and alive. Her work transforms the familiar backgammon games, kitchen tables, sideline conversations into luminous narratives of communion, care, and unspoken legacy. Series like High Cotton exemplify Bronner’s approach: reclaiming inherited  anguage and imagery to explore themes of pride, prosperity, and lived Black experience. Across her body of work, she honors the rituals that shape identity and preserve culture, especially as passed down through play, storytelling, and togetherness. Based in Washington, DC, Bronner has exhibited in galleries throughout the region and continues to expand her practice through explorations of narrative, craft, and community.

PHILIP A. ROBINSON Jr. is an award-winning multi-media sculptor, conceptual artist and educator, who uses wood to symbolize temporality within natural cycles of time and geography to amplify the narrative of identity within popular and marginalized cultures. Through thoughtful selection of materials and the science of dendrochronology - as a protocol for historic markers for environmental changes through time - his work accentuates aesthetic and historic patterns between self and the world, with socio-political undertones.  These undertones are shaped by influences from a Cherokee and African American mother and a Trinidadian and British father against the backdrop of the 1980s neo-conceptual art and installation practices and a climate of laissez-faire capitalism and technological advances.

ADDIS GEZEHAGN Gezehagn completed his BFA from Addis Ababa University Alle School of Fine Art in 2011 with a distinction. A long-time artistic presence in Addis Ababa, he is known for portraying the multifaceted characteristics of the city's residents by detailing the external facades of their homes. In his painting series he captures the chaos, charisma, artistry and

harmony of his birth-country Ethiopia. The paintings are deptics dream like  deconstructed and layered renderings of the urban landscape rising above the ground. These composition made by layering magazine cut outs with acrylic paint, blend the boundaries of fantasy and reality of urban life, blurring the lines between the past, present and future. Flattened and reductive, Gezehagn's works imagine cityscapes as towers or patchworks of colorful doors and gates, the architectural structures seeming to signify a natural, organic network of living spaces. 

The rootless and ephemeral nature of the layered towers call into question the lives of the inhabitants. Examining the personal and public spaces, the works archive walls, windows, files and towers destined to crumble, tracing a pattern of classism and social injustice.  Gezehagn’s works urge us to think beyond homes as functional entities and offer commentary on the social -economic context of urban life.

WORKNEH BEZU born on 8th of March 1978 and he grew up in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Workneh began drawing from a very young age, taking drawing lessons in elementary school and showing great artistic ability. Although his family encouraged him to become an auto mechanic, Workneh was destined to follow his passion for art and enrolled at the prestigious Addis Ababa University School of Fine Art and Design, to study under some of the masters of Ethiopian Painting and Sculptor.

For Workneh, art is his life, his passion and dreams. Receiving formal training gave Workneh the techniques and academic skills he needed to bring his dreams to reality.  Workneh experiment with different artistic forms and has become one of the pioneers of children’s puppet film and short animation film in Ethiopia. Included in his creations are rug puppets, paintings in oil and watercolors, sculptures and graphics art.

EMMANUEL GILLESPIE was born and raised in Dallas, Texas. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of North Texas and later received a Master of Arts from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Working across both two- and three-dimensional forms, Gillespie employs a mixed-media practice that explores memory, history, and the lived experiences of Black communities. Throughout his career, Gillespie has contributed to several significant public art projects in Dallas. His work includes contributions to the Ernie Banks statue commission in collaboration with the Mayor of Dallas and Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, as well as the Bexar Street Corridor project. He also designed public artworks for the Dallas Area Rapid Transit Green Line, including installations for the Martin Luther King Jr. Station and the J.B. Jackson Transit Center. Most recently, Gillespie created an eight-foot sculpture honoring Charlie Sifford for the city of Charlotte, commemorating the pioneering golfer's enduring legacy. His work has been exhibited through Tanya Weddemire Gallery at the Affordable Art Fair and in repeated presentations at the gallery's Brooklyn location. Gillespie's current body of work, Love, reflects on the memories embedded within everyday life while celebrating the beauty and necessity of rest. Through painting, sculpture, and mixed media, he invites viewers to engage deeply with personal and collective histories. His practice fosters dialogue and reflection, bringing together narratives that illuminate. 

TYVETTE SYMONE is a self-taught mixed media artist based in Brooklyn, New York. She masters the use of natural materials such as crystals, taxidermy, feathers, bark, dirt, paper and mirror in her artwork. Each creation reflects different aspects of an emotion or principle based on its medium and her intention. ‘The Wisdom of a Broken Promise’ examines how trust is shaped not only by commitments that are fulfilled, but also by those that fracture. When relationships fail, we have the opportunity to learn discernment. Ruptures can expose the other person, as well as our own standards and what we are willing to accept moving forward. The work begins with a lace-like paper formed from interwoven cotton strands and mulberry fiber, evoking the structure of the dynamic as something built from many small threads of trust, boundaries, and communication. Burnt edges express the irrevocable experiences that shape the peak of confrontation. The broken mallard

wing holds space for the moment when trust can no longer carry a person where they expected to go. Mica encourages reflection and self-examination, suggesting that conflict can reveal not only the shortcomings of others, but also our own assumptions, expectations, and capacity for compassion. Quartz crystals signify the clarity that emerges after illusion is removed, amplifying the connections, memories, and lessons that follow.

PURETEE PHILIP is a London born and based, self taught painter currently exploring self identity through the lens of culture. Raised between contradictions, her work is shaped by a curiosity about the systems that push people to become who they are and the stories they carry with them. Recent travels across America have deepened this enquiry, leading her through worldly experiences that continue to inform her paintings. Working figuratively, Puretee creates images that sit somewhere between observation and a memory. Tracing ideas of displacement and connection. Her work has been presented in self curated solo exhibitions; Something About Connection (2022), Something About Existence (2023) and Facing The Room (2025). Puretee will be attended the Royal College Of Art 2026/2027 of a full Sir Frank Bowing Scholarship where she will continue to research and expand her ideas. 

HUEY LIGHTBODY is a multidisciplinary visual practitioner residing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Born in Jamaica, Queens, and raised in Virginia Beach, Lightbody turned to creative investigation after stepping off a conventional life path, finding in his practice both refuge and revelation.

His work merges street-inspired gestures, abstract portrait fragments, and modernist impulses. More than form or decoration, his surfaces serve as communicative fields for exploring the human complex, with a particular focus on the mechanisms and emotions of addiction. Through every layer

and abrasion, Lightbody’s practice seeks not only to reflect personal narrative but to spark collective reckoning and to transform vulnerability into a sharpened shared language of renewal