Tyrone Mitchell
Born in Savannah, Georgia, sculptor Tyrone Mitchell creates three-dimensional, mixed-media assemblages from wood, fabric, and paint. Inspired by African traditions—particularly the cultures of Mali and Senegal—Mitchell uses conventional tools to create works that appear to have been organically grown or plucked from other periods in history. He has also drawn elements from other cultures, often blending them in surprising juxtapositions, such as carving lines from a Walt Whitman poem into a salvaged piece of a 500-year-old Chinese temple. In addition to his studio practice, Mitchell teaches students at New York’s Queens College. Mitchell is associated with a group of important African-American artists including Martin Puryear, Melvin Edwards, Marren Hassinger, Dindga McCannon, Faith Ringgold and Howardena Pindell, who came to prominence in the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s. His work can be found in major museum collections around the world.
Brigitta Varadi
Brigitta Varadi is a Hungarian born artist, arts worker and educator based in Pine Plains, NY. She is a multimedia artist who delves into tradition, craft, and the everyday rituals of working life. She investigates themes of sustainability and cultural heritage through a combination of research, material experimentation and community workshops. Interweaving notions of fine art and craft, labor, and heritage, Varadi connects us to the importance of tradition in an era of mass-production and global economies. Brigitta examines the disappearing traditions and daily activities of small, secluded communities around the world: her grandmother mopping up her kitchen floor several times a day, the “liberty” tea made by inhabitants of New York State and the marking system of the dwindling community of shepherds in Ireland. Brigitta is a 2021 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow. She recently completed her artist-in residence at the MAD-Museum of Arts and Design (New York, NY), where she focused on a community- based research project commissioned by Burlington City Arts Center (Burlington, VT). Her residency at MAD and Shelburne Farms culminated in a solo exhibit at the Burlington City Arts Center, in February 2020. Her latest solo shows were held at 4 Times Square, Chashama (New York, NY) Westbeth Gallery (New York, NY), the Budapest Gallery (Budapest, Hungary), Leitrim Sculpture Centre (Manorhamilton, Ireland), Serbian Church Gallery (Balassagyarmat, Hungary), Textile Arts Centre (New York, NY).
Blake Hiltunen
Blake Hiltunen is a widely exhibited Brooklyn-based sculptor who received his MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. He has received numerous awards and honors, including the prestigious Maharam STEAM Fellowship. Hiltunen’s surreal sculptures reinterpret figurative objects as though they have been subjected to the collapsing time, space, and gravity of an alternate reality. The works, which begin as whole, detailed figurative objects, have some of their original material removed, warped, or altered in such a way as to reflect the imagined outcome of a transformation through a natural catastrophic event.
Indie 184
Artist Soraya Marquez aka Indie184, (born 1980) is a native New Yorker, from Dominicandescent, has been active in the graffiti culture for over 2 decades. Determined to express herself to the world through art, she quit business college to teach herself how to sew, paint and produce graphic design.Also influenced by abstract expressionism and pop art, her paintings are raptures of color and textures. Fused with of her original graffiti and street art, imagery, and designs juxtaposed with personal messages. Indie’s art has been exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide, including El Museo del Barrio in New York City and Völklingen Ironworks Museum, in Saarbrücken Germany, Museo de Bellas Artes De Murcia in Spain as well as numerous solo and group gallery exhibitions. Her graffiti and mixed media murals can be found in the streets from the South Bronx to Paris. Her most recent collaborations have been with Rimmel London as Chief Artistic Officer, Apple Beats1 Radio, Lionsgate Films, MTV Networks, and a capsule clothing collection with iBlues. Catch her creating her latest work in the streets, designing, or painting in her studio.
Janet Loren Hill
Janet Loren Hill is a New York City-based artist, whose work exists at the intersection of textiles and painting. She purposefully uses textile techniques like weaving, beading, crochet and coiling for their use by feminist and queer activist groups. Dripping with absurdism and surrealism she has built a cast of characters who play out propaganda techniques within her object-paintings, installations and videos. Hill received an MFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design and a BFA from the University of Washington, where she also studied in Rome, Italy as part of the University’s studio art program. She has exhibited at numerous galleries nationally, including Field Projects Gallery (NY, NY), The Border Project Space (Brooklyn, NY) and Abigail Ogilvy Gallery (Boston, MA). She has participated in multiple residencies internationally, including Vermont Studio Center, Wassaic Project, Anderson Ranch, McColl Center for Art + Innovation, Beijing Royal School and The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts (EFA) Studio Program. Hill’s work has been recognized in The Boston Globe, Boston Art Review, Big Red & Shiny and The Rib. In 2017, Hill was spotlighted in the MFA Annual Edition of New American Paintings by Elisabeth Sherman, Assistant Curator at the Whitney Museum of Art and her work was recently exhibited at SPRING/BREAK Art Show 2022.