Artists to Work Grantees

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​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​The Artists to Work Program supports the creation and presentation of original, new or in-process artistic work by practicing Phoenix artists.  

For this third round, we received 156 applications for the two-step application process. Only 48 applicants moved to the second step​, and 24 were recommended funding. The awarded artists will complete a public presentation inside city of Phoenix boundaries that primarily benefits Phoenix residents. ​​​​​​​

Awarded Artists

Meet the Artists to Work awardees. The 2025 artists will be working on an art project during the year 2025 and will hold a public presentation in January 2026.

2025 Cohort

Adam Corona


Discipline:Visual and Studio Arts

Website: Brasstuna.com

IG:@brasstuna

Bio
Adam Corona (BrassTuna) (b. 2000) is a Phoenix, Arizona-based visual artist creating works centered around queer and Latine culture, and how they overlap in the 21st century. Incorporating mask making, sculpting, sewing, and painting, BrassTuna immerses their photography style around the ideas of community building.

Project Description
This will be Adam Corona's first time setting out on a large scale Documentary photographic project. Documenting the grounds they grew up on in South Phoenix, which are surrounded by Mexican culture, heritage, and family. Described by Corona, "I hope to return to the grounds that raised me . With this show , I hope to find the strength to return to self . Through this , I'll be given the power to forge a new life." The project will begin production in early 2025, with a full scale photographic exhibition set for late 2025.

Amber McCrary


Discipline:Poetry and Zines

Website: ambermccrary.com

IG:@junipergrrrl

Bio
Amber McCrary is a Diné poet, zinester and the author of Blue Corn Tongue: Poems in the Mouth of the Desert (University of Arizona Press, 2025). McCrary lives in Phoenix, on the land of the Akimel O’odham.

Project Description
I would like to present a project focused on Rez dogs and their significance in Native communities, with plans to create a dedicated zine. Central to this project is my dog, Sandy McCrary, whom I adopted from the Coconino Humane Society in Flagstaff, Arizona. I also want to highlight several Rez dogs I fostered through the Tuba City Humane Society over a nine-month period. These dogs include those who were abandoned and homeless near the local high school, a puppy found lost under a work trailer and two brother puppies found at my grandma’s sheep camp.

Antoinette Cauley

Discipline: Painting

Website:antoinettecauleyart.com

IG:@antoinettecauley

Bio
Antoinette Cauley is an internationally recognized artist from Phoenix, Arizona, known for her vibrant, emotionally charged paintings inspired by Black American Hood culture and feminism. Her work, which emphasizes Black empowerment, includes notable public murals of James Baldwin and Brittney Griner in downtown Phoenix. Cauley studied Fine Art at Mesa Community College, where she apprenticed under Chris Saper.

Project Description
With grant funding, I will create a series of paintings that explore the concept of place-based safety within Black American communities. This work is inspired by Tupac's 1992 song "Wonder if Heaven Got a Ghetto" and my personal experience of freedom abroad. The project examines the historical and ongoing displacement of Black Americans, particularly the legacy of housing segregation. This project merges afro-futurism and my unique aesthetic to address themes of safety and belonging.

Camila de Andrade Bianchi


Discipline:Interdisciplinary

Website: www.bianchicamila.com

IG: @camilabianchi

Bio
Camila de Andrade Bianchi is a Brazilian transdisciplinary artist, researcher, and educator based in Phoenix, Arizona. In her work, she uses interactive sculpture and performance to investigate human and more-than-human relationships, emphasizing their potential for promoting social and ecological regeneration.

Project Description
"Effervescent Futures" explores prospects of the future through collaborative participation and mutual care. The work is an installation composed of ceramic sculptures that host the biological process of kombucha fermentation. Using sculptures as bridges between people and other biological cultures. The work will invite discussion about the possible ways in which we propagate and transform ourselves toward the future through relationships of radical care between people and microbial life. The project will manifest as both an installation and a participatory performance, with the performance unfolding within the installation space itself. "Effervescent Futures" will be accessible to the public in March 2025 during the Art Detour exhibition as part of ASU Grant Street Studios' "Open Studios" weekend in downtown Phoenix.

Christiane Agnese Barros

Discipline: Visual (Short documentary)

Website:@inhapy_films

IG: @chrisagnese

Bio
Chris Agnese is a Brazilian filmmaker with extensive documentary experience. Based in the U.S., her short Jegues won Best Cinematography at the Amazon Film Festival, and she directed Experimente for Channel Bis, earning a bronze medal at the New York Festivals. Chris is CEO of Inhapi Films, specializing in multilingual projects.

Project Description
In the poetic short documentary US, Brazilian-Venezuelan immigrant Luciana navigates the challenges of displacement and isolation in America. Struggling to find her place in a foreign land, she turns to writing as a way to heal and express her complex emotions. Alongside her, Chris, a Brazilian filmmaker also grappling with her own immigrant journey, provides support and encouragement. Through their connection, Luciana discovers the transformative power of creativity as a means of resilience, while Chris learns to channel her own struggles into a shared artistic vision. US is a celebration of hope, solidarity, and the healing power of creative expression.

Daniel Mariotti

Discipline: Sculpture and Photography

Website:www.danielmariotti.com

IG: @dvmariot

Bio
Chris Daniel Mariotti is a Phoenix-based interdisciplinary artist blending photography and sculpture. Drawing inspiration from science and personal narratives, his work examines memory, materiality, and cultural identity through abstraction. Recognizing that the work itself is often a tool in a greater process, he investigates the structures and frameworks we create within.

Project Description
The proposed project, Tak Slucham (Polish for "Yes, Listening"), explores Daniel's personal history and cultural identity, shaped by his father's struggle with Alzheimer's and eventual passing. The project reflects on the artist's role as a son, navigating between childhood memories and the layers of his Polish-American upbringing. Mariotti blends personal storytelling with Polish folklore, such as Baba Yaga and Pisanki, to explore themes of memory, loss, and identity. By incorporating both historical research and childhood objects/memories, Tak Slucham aims to trace the artist's evolving sense of self, while reflecting on the broader cultural narratives of survival and transformation.

Dean Terasaki

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Discipline: Visual Art: Photomontages

Website:www.deanterasaki.xyz

IG: @silvers_dk

Bio
Dean Terasaki's childhood discovery of his father's 442nd Regiment, WWII snapshots sparked a lifelong photographic exploration of memory, race, and culture. Terasaki studied at the University of Colorado (BFA) and Arizona State University (MFA). For 33 years, he taught photography and digital imaging at Arizona's Glendale Community College.

Project Description
Dean Terasaki's project, "Veiled Inscriptions," explores the experiences of Japanese Americans during their illegal WWII incarceration. The project is based on letters written by Japanese Americans who were forcibly removed from their homes and incarcerated in ten "relocation" camps. The letters, which were hidden for nearly 70 years, were mail order requests sent to his family's pharmacy. Terasaki reveals stories of mystery, isolation, and loss by combining these letters with his own site photographs of the historic camps. He offers a poignant perspective on a tragic chapter in American history, highlighting the enduring spirit of the Japanese American people.

Diego Lozano

Discipline: Graphic Designer, Photographer, Digital Organizer, and Multidisciplinary Artist

Website: www.diegonacho.com

IG: @diegonacho

Bio
Diego Lozano is a graphic designer, photographer, and multidisciplinary artist whose work focuses on culture, identity, and resilience, shaped by his Mexican-American heritage. Through design and photography, he creates intentional work that amplifies voices, raw emotions, and connects communities, all while staying grounded in his personal experiences.

Project Description
My project is a multimedia interactive installation that explores themes like borders, control, freedom, and other pressing political issues, pushing people to reflect on the challenges shaping today’s polarized climate. With division among Americans at an all-time high, critical art has never been more important. It has the power to challenge perspectives, deepen understanding, and provoke dialogue.

Francisco Diaz

Discipline: Textile Art

Website: ciscosews.com

IG: @ciscosews

Bio
Francisco is a textile artist, designer and community organizer from Phoenix, AZ. His work explores themes of sustainability and queer expression, made from second-hand or recycled materials. His work has been displayed at Boston Fashion Week, Austin Slow Fashion Festival and locally at The Sagrado Galleria and CALA Alliance.

Project Description
With grant funding, I plan to create a collection of wearable art pieces using second-hand materials. Alongside this collection, I will develop an informative installation focusing on over-consumption, water usage, and the environmental impact of fast fashion. I hope to accomplish this by dividing the project into the following three steps:

Gayle Tomimbang

Discipline: Filmmaking, photography, and camera-based multimedia work

IG:@fistbones

Bio
Gayle Tomimbang is a filmmaker, photographer, and interdisciplinary media artist. Born in Manila, Philippines, and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, Gayle's work explores themes of identity, memory, and cultural displacement. Gayle holds a BA in Film and Media Production from Arizona State University and works full time as a videographer for her alma mater.

Project Description
"Duty Free Care", a documentary, investigates the history and current state of Filipino nurses in America. The language of the film, combined with images of the often dehumanizing work of migrant labor, will create a contrast between the realities of Filipino nurses' working conditions with the dreams and desires of those performing the work. This contrast between public/working spaces experiences and interpersonal non-work exchanges will shed light on issues surrounding migrant labor, US imperialism in the Philippines, the exploitation of Filipino nurses through pay disparities and workplace discrimination, COVID furthering exploitation of Filipino nurses, and so-called "work-life balance".

Harold Lohner

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Discipline: Visual Arts Printmaking

Website:haroldlohner.com/

IG: @haroldlohner

Bio
Harold Lohner is an artist, type designer, and professor emeritus. After a career of teaching printmaking and more at Russell Sage College in upstate New York, he has devoted himself to creating his own work at his home studio. Harold has exhibited his monoprints and artist's books nationally and regionally.

Project Description
With grant funding, I plan to create a collection of wearable art pieces using second-hand materials. Alongside this collection, I will develop an informative installation focusing on over-consumption, water usage, and the environmental impact of fast fashion. I hope to accomplish this by dividing the project into the following three steps.

Jared Peterson

Discipline: Sculpture and Installation Art

Website:jaredpetersonstudio.com

IG: @jaredpetersonstudio

Bio
Jared Peterson (b.1993) is an artist from West Virginia, interested in society’s relationship with sports, Christianity, labor, and gender norms. Jared received his Masters of Fine Art degree from Arizona State University in 2024, and currently works in Phoenix, Arizona.

Project Description
For this project I will create a large-scale sculptural installation featuring a baseball infield constructed of porcelain, terracotta, and coal. For this installation, porcelain casts of wood will be used to create the white baselines and batter’s box. In place of the dirt and clay used to form the infield, I will use crushed bituminous coal. In place of the grass, I will use crushed terracotta from the factory discard at Mission Clay Products, a major US producer of industrial ceramic pipe, located in southwest Phoenix.

Jennifer Datchuk

Discipline: Visual Arts

Website: jenniferlingdatchuk.com

IG: @jenniferlingdatchuk

Bio
Jennifer Ling Datchuk’s work is an exploration of her layered identity–as a woman, a Chinese woman, as an “American,” as a third culture kid. A trained ceramicist, she works with porcelain and other materials often associated with traditional women’s work—like textiles and hair fibers, her practice discusses beauty, femininity, identity, and her personal history.

Project Description
Ripening explores the fragility, resilience, and silenced histories of how the non-white body is commodified, sold, and in service of others. Women’s – globally, girls’ – labor is still a major economic driver whose workers still struggle for visibility and equality. My project will consist of porcelain sculptures displayed on revolving mattress type platforms to explore the global to regional inequalities of labor.

John "Jesse" Perry

Discipline: Sculpture and Installation Art

Website:shinethruart.com

IG: @mrdowntownphx

Bio
Jesse Perry is a muralist based in Phoenix, Arizona. Inspired by the diversity and cultural richness of the Southwest, Jesse's art reflects the vibrant colors and character of the region. With a distinctive style that is unmistakably his own, Jesse continues to make a profound impact on the Phoenix art scene and beyond.

Project Description
With this grant, I will paint a mural for the Alice Cooper Solid Rock Teen Center in Phoenix, a place that provides teens with a central place to learn, have fun, and explore their creativity in a supportive and safe environment. The mural will focus on central themes of diversity, unity and imagination while reflecting outlets the center promotes including music, art and theater. In addition, there will be an opportunity for members of the center to assist with the design and installation of the mural itself, giving them a stronger sense of community and themselves.

Kenaim Al-Shatti

NEED PHOTO

Discipline: Visual Artist

Website:kenaim.com

IG: @kenaimx

Bio
Kenaim Al-Shatti is a visual artist based in Phoenix, Arizona. His work spans video art, large-scale installations, and immersive experiences, blending technology and emotion to create work that steps over conventional boundaries.

Project Description
“Another Planets” is an original animated film and musical suite inspired by Gustav Holst’s The Planets. Drawing on my lifelong connection to Holst’s evocative score and its otherworldly grandeur, this project reimagines the planets as a wholly original sonic and visual odyssey. Each movement features a new composition rooted in the emotional and mythological essence of the original, brought to life through groundbreaking animation and immersive sound design. More than an audiovisual experience, Another Planets is a transformative journey through the cosmic and the human, designed to captivate, challenge, and linger in the imagination long after the stars fade.

Mariane Hanneken



Discipline: Music Performance and Recording

IG:@marilions, and @mediopintoband

Bio
Marian is a singer-songwriter, violinist, and versatile musician from Venezuela with a deep love for fusion. Classically trained, she has performed in orchestras, choirs, and Venezuelan folk and Afro-Venezuelan bands. Now based in the U.S., Marian constantly seeks to blend her Afro-Venezuelan roots with world music in her current project with Medio Pinto band.

Project Description
My project is focused on recording an EP of original songs, inspired by personal experiences and the powerful stories I've heard from others. These songs blend a variety of rhythms and sounds, including my Afro-Venezuelan roots, with global musical influences, creating a fusion of cultures, emotions, and traditions. I’m thrilled to be working alongside amazing musicians, lifelong friends, and family who have been integral to this journey. This project offers me the opportunity to share this beautiful music with the world, honor my roots, and explore themes of identity, connection, and shared human experiences.

MaryHope Lee

Discipline: Interdisciplinary Visual Artist: practices include, but are not limited to, collage, needlework, and poetry.

IG:@mhwlee_collage

Bio
maryhope|whitehead|lee is an interdisciplinary collagist whose work has appeared in, and on, the covers of print and digital journals and magazines, and exhibited in Phoenix at Raíz Gallery, ASU’s downtown campus, Songbird Coffee and Tea House, and The Domino in New Orleans, as well as a number of virtual galleries.

Project Description
“Deadly Crossing” uses fragments of maps, collages, poems, and embroidered handkerchiefs to commemorate the lives of those who have died and disappeared while crossing the Sonoran Desert over the last two decades. The goal of “Deadly Crossing” is to expand the visual, material, and emotional vocabularies of my practice by incorporating new embroidery techniques, and three-dimensional elements, including small metal charms, textiles, and found objects. The deaths and disappearances continue to mount, and the grief I feel remains raw and present. “Deadly Crossing” is an expression of my personal grief and, hopefully, a catalyst for empathy and compassion in others.

Matt Flores

Discipline: Poetry and Prose

IG:@mattf1331

Bio
Matt Flores is originally from South Texas and is interested in the counter-narratives of the borderlands. They have received fellowships and residencies from the Mellon Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, the Ideafund, and Center for Imagination in the Borderlands.

Project Description
In this project I will engage in a poetic practice through reflecting on encounters along borderlands of the US and Mexico, as well as more capacious understandings of what borders are. As pseudo-fictional political boundaries to establish security for the insecure, I’m interested in the fluidity of forms – that include writing, photography, drawing, archive building, and oral stories – which when freely engaged with destabilize their own disciplinary borders. We may unconsciously reimpose these disciplinary and conquest strategies when making art and personal encounters, so finding an ethical joy that’s critical in this process of artmaking is a root goal of this work.

Melanie LeGendre

NEED PHOTO

Discipline: Visual Artist: Painter, Mixed Media

IG: @mlegendre1

Bio
Highways bridge physical and spiritual worlds, connecting us to new places and experiences. Arizona’s decorative highway patterns inspire my exploration of patterns as visual prayers symbolizing guidance, protection, and blessings. Through oil paint, mixed media, and intaglio printing, I blend landscapes, interstate structures, and patterns to depict the divine connection between landforms, roads, and spiritual transcendence.

Project Description
I will create a series of 10 works using intaglio, mixed media, and paint on patterned substrates to explore the connections between Arizona’s highways, landscapes, and spiritual journeys. Integrating printed silhouettes of interstate structures underlaid with intricate patterns, I will depict the grand architecture of the highways, their real and symbolic role in connecting places, people, and the divine, and the uneasy relationship with the natural environment. This work reflects on the journey facilitated by these roads, capturing the beauty and the tension between the contemporary desert landscape, human intervention, and the animals and plants who share the landscape.

Monica-Gisel Crespo

Discipline: Painter

Website: Monicagisel.com

IG: @Monicagiselart_MCS

Bio
I am a teaching artist, illustrator, and printmaker from Mexico City. Since 1989, my work has been exhibited internationally and recognized with various awards, including Best of Show and Honorable Mention. This year, I am excited to be an Artist to Work grant recipient from the City of Phoenix.

Project Description
Through this project, I seek to heal the multigenerational wounds of the diaspora through self-reflection, reconnecting with the land of my ancestors, and sharing the stories of family left behind. I will document my journey to Oaxaca, the land of my ancestors, and my creative process, through video and painting. The project will culminate in an exhibition of my paintings, and the video will be displayed at the opening, followed by a Q+A session

Saskia Jorda

 

Discipline: Visual Arts: Site-responsive installations, soft sculptures, and drawing

Website: saskiajorda.com

IG: @saskiajorda

Bio
Saskia Jorda is an interdisciplinary artist and educator whose works span the range between site-specific installations, soft sculptures, textiles, and drawings. Her work references the relationship between body and space, cultural identity, and mapping a sense of place. Jorda has exhibited widely within the U.S. and internationally.

Project Description
With support from an Artists to Work grant, I plan on expanding on the theme of the ‘second skin of the land,’ which merges two thematic strands of my practice: projects dealing with the ‘body’ and ‘cultural identity;’ and projects dealing with the ‘land’ and ‘place.’ This sculptural body of work will use my “Rooted” and “Home” series as points of departure, to explore narratives of immigration, assimilation, and identity, and to capture both the anxiety of leaving one’s home and the optimism of settling in a new home – conflicting emotions that are often at the core of the immigrant experience.

Shaunté Glover

Discipline: Multidisciplinary

Website:shaunteglover.com/

IG: @shaunte

Bio
Shaunté Glover is a multidisciplinary artist working in photography, video, sculpture, and installation. Her work explores identity, culture, and the experiences of underrepresented communities. Recent exhibitions include the Phoenix Art Museum, Lisa Sette Gallery, and Tucson Museum of Art’s Biennial, where she examines the intersection of self, community, and representation.

Project Description
The grant will support a solo exhibition, "Trophy Room," blending my artistic background with experimentation. The show reimagines late 18th and early 19th-century women's basketball memorabilia, featuring object-based works, photography, and poster designs. "Trophy Room" highlights overlooked contributions of women in basketball, identity, and culture. The immersive experience will include upcycled jerseys, found basketballs, and artifacts that evoke the era, along with imaginative pieces celebrating women of color. This project expands my exploration of history and culture through object-based art, offering fresh perspectives on representation and social change, while engaging audiences in critical reflections on history and identity.

Socorro Hernandez

 

Discipline: Visual Arts: Printmaking and ceramics

IG:@socorrohernandez_

Bio
Socorro Hernandez is a Mexican-American printmaker and ceramicist whose work explores cultural identity, resilience, and heritage. Inspired by her upbringing in a working-class town near Phoenix and her family’s roots in migrant labor camps, she creates powerful linoleum prints that honor history and empower marginalized communities.

Project Description
Tierra y Esperanza is a series of ten 8x10 linoleum prints capturing the daily lives of Mexican families in early 1900s migrant labor camps. Inspired by my heritage and rooted in extensive research, the project honors their resilience and contributions. Through tactile linocut techniques, I aim to convey their strength and humanity while challenging myself artistically. By attending printmaking workshops, I will refine my craft and explore new methods to deepen the narrative impact of my work. This project celebrates cultural identity and connects viewers to the enduring legacy of these communities.

Yaritza Flores Bustos


Discipline: Interdisciplinary

IG:@northeada

Bio
Yaritza Flores Bustos migrated from Michoacán, México at a young age alongside her family. They established home and grew in Maryvale, the Westside of Phoenix, something she states with pride. She works across mediums to develop a new archive in which the multiple languages her community utilizes within survival are venerated.

Project Description
I will develop site-specific installations at Las Pantallas (Glendale Park ‘N Swap) and Los Perros (Phoenix Park ‘N Swap), two cultural pillars within my community, that we seek for support, comfort, and understanding. Swap meets are an example of the informal economies that exist as a hidden basis of support and structure for our communal survival. They are not exclusive to Phoenix, expanding timelines, man-made borders, languages and generations; they are prehispanic and a marker of historic continuity. The installations will serve as monuments, aimed to preserve our cultural heritage born out of necessity, one’s that my community has immediate access to.

2024 Cohort

Carla Keaton


Discipline:  Visual and Studio Arts

Bio: Carla Keaton is a fine artist and illustrator, receiving her art degree from Arizona State University. Her work has been shown in galleries across the United States, anthropology magazines, and public art designs for several cities in Arizona. She’s inspired by recording and interpreting visually, stories experienced by human beings globally.

Project Description: Carla is in the process of completing her current body of work, titled The Sharecroppers and the Cotton Pickers of the Southwest. The project was inspired by her father’s experience picking cotton in the Mississippi cotton fields, beginning at the early age of six. This collection of large scale triptych paintings are being created from the stories told, during interviews conducted with individuals, in Arizona and Mississippi who labored in the cotton fields in both regions of the United States. This project aims to successfully document visually, the stories, strength and resilience of these amazing elders in our communities.

Dominique Holley


Discipline:  Performing Arts

IG: @bassisking

Bio: Dominique is someone with a strong dedication to diversity in music and a deep passion for chamber music. He enjoys exploring how his traditional training as a classical musician can be used a spring board to dive into a wide range of different musical genres and explore the place his own cultural inheritance has within them.

Project Description
This project will involve Dominique recording his first studio album as a band leader. The music of this album will primarily feature pieces by black composers whose works not only blur the line between classical music and other genres but also allow room for improvisation and freedom of expression from the performers. The album will feature Dominique Holley on clarinet, and bass clarinet with support from pianist Jeremiah Sweeney.

Esteban Rosales

Discipline: Performing Arts

IG: @licensedputo

Website: https://estebanrosalesdance.wixsite.com/main

Bio: Esteban Rosales is a Mexican-American multidisciplinary performance artist from Phoenix, Arizona. Infatuated by dance performances at 14 years old, he would pursue a BFA in Dance at Arizona State University where he'd discover a passion for dance as a profound art. As a performer, his training stems from street forms including locking, vogue femme, house, and popping.

Fernando Lino

 

Discipline:  Performing Arts

IG: @Fernando.r.lino

Bio: Fernando Lino is a dancer, choreographer, and educator from Phoenix, Arizona. His movement experiments with various styles such as salsa, belly dance, flamenco, ballet, contemporary, house, hip hop and shuffle. He currently teaches fitness and tai chi to seniors while working on incorporating breaking into his movement vocabulary. 

Project Description: My project will create a community-building dance performance inspired by the concept of cypher. A cypher is a dance jam where participants take turns in the center of a circle formed by fellow dancers and onlookers. The intimate, circular gathering embodies a profound philosophy – that we are equals, that we are all connected, and that we all have something to contribute.   The collaboration between dancers and myself will culminate with a final performance which will be shared with the community. A post-performance class will invite the audience to continue their engagement with dance and with each other, further reinforcing the community building of this artistic endeavor.

Gabriel Vinas 


Discipline:Visual and Studio Arts

IG: @gabrielvinasart

Website: https://www.gabrielvinas.com

Bio: Born in Parraga, Cuba, Gabriel is a sculptor whose work blends the anatomical sciences and figurative art with an emphasis on portraiture. His collaboration with scientists around the globe has yielded 3 scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals which work towards the development of reliable methods for anatomically reconstructing ancient humans.

Project Description: My proposal for the artists to work grant 2024 is for the execution of my piece: "La Piedad" through the attendance of the Digital Stone Residency in Italy. The work is an exploration of the nature of knowledge and the barriers of human understanding. My reimagined version of this iconic sculpture grapples with the nuances of scientific epistemology as a response to five years of collaborative scientific work I produced in my MFA Thesis. It confronts the questions: How do we truly 'know' something? What may stand beyond our grasp? Furthermore, how can we find stillness in accepting incomplete knowledge?

Gustavo Angeles


Discipline: Music

IG: @gangeles_music

Website: https://linktr.ee/gangeles

Bio: Gustavo Ángeles is a passionate guitarist, singer, songwriter and producer. He can combine a fusion of Latin Rock musical styles, including Flamenco, and Latin American influences in his music.Music has taken Gustavo the world to places like Cuba, Sweden, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Puerto Rico, opening for international acts.

Project Description: The project I’d like to make happen is an audio/visual international collaboration. I'll be writing/composing original music using electronic beats mixed with aztec/mayan motives and sounds that I learned. I'll be collaborating with Cuban musicians that will record Afro cuban percussion and Cuban Tres guitar as well, and fusing all of these elements with Flamenco guitar. I will also shoot footage of this process and create a video showcasing the musicians that will be collaborating internationally.

Junior Toltecatl


Discipline: Visual and Studio Arts

IG: @Junior_Toltecatl

Website: JToltecatl.com

Bio: Junior Toltecatl is a self-taught Indigenous artist born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. His work is informed by his culture and traditions. He has transitioned over the years from graffiti and murals, to permanent works on canvas and exhibiting work in galleries.

Project Description: Windows of Wisdom: Indigenous Stories in Stained-Glass, aims to create an art series exploring the complex relationships between the church and Indigenous people throughout history. Each piece will be painted in a stained-glass style, traditionally used in churches to highlight an important person or event. Utilizing this aesthetic with Indigenous stories and imagery disrupts the traditional religious narrative of stained-glass, paying reverence to the stories that were almost lost due to cultural oppression. Some topics the project will touch on include loss of knowledge, creation stories, resilience, and cultural pride. The art series will culminate in an exhibition and celebration.

Liliana Gomez


Discipline: Performing Arts

IG: @lilianalupe and @lilianagomezdance

Website: https://lilianagomezdance.weebly.com/

Bio: Liliana Gomez, a passionate Phoenix-based choreographer, infuses her Mexican Latina experiences into original dances. Her works grace public spaces—galleries, canals, and more—while also enriching universities, high schools, and communities. Her acclaimed production, Caminando, blends dance, music, and migration narratives, captivating audiences from Phoenix and Tempe to Joshua Tree.

Project Description: Funds from this grant will help the development of my next evening length dance show; “Quinceañera” The celebration of a girl's 15th birthday where young women and men have roles as formal damas and chambelanes, to perform special dances. I will research its history, learn traditional waltz, and observe quinceanera dances of the now. Once the research phase is done, I plan on reconstructing the special dances to a large group of professional dancers, removing gender roles, and creating a contemporary version of the dances. I will be collaborating with designers, costume artists and more to premiere the work at a wedding hall.

Mary Fitzgerald


Discipline: Performing Arts

IG:@mmfitzgera

Website:mary.fitzgeralddance.com

Bio: Mary Fitzgerald is a choreographer, performer, and educator. She has been creating contemporary modern dance choreography, dance films, and socially engaged arts projects in Arizona for over 20 years. Her work has been funded by numerous organizations and has been presented at notable venues in the U.S. and abroad.

Project Description: Remember is a dance film project created by choreographer Mary Fitzgerald, designer Galina Mihaleva, filmmaker Dmitri von Klein, and 3 local dancers. The idea for the film evolved out of Haikeus, a performance installation project that explores our emotional responses to climate change and ecological crises. Using innovative costume design and dance filmmaking techniques, the project will delve into the layered histories (cultural, socio-political, and ecological) of the places we have lived, exploring how we can reimagine our relationship to the natural environment and become better caretakers of our home.

Mary Lucking


Discipline: Visual and Studio Arts

IG:@lizardacres

Website:https://www.marylucking.com

Bio: Mary’s studio work is created using cloisonné: an ancient craft combining melted glass and silver wire. She integrates cloisonné into metal and wood sculptural objects that exist in a world somewhere between toys, jewelry, and sacred objects. Mary also creates public artworks, ranging from large-scale, permanent artworks to temporary interactive installations. Her projects include art incorporated into walking and biking trails, public transit stations, and neighborhood parks throughout Arizona and across the US.

Project Description: My project explores the faith involved in the act of making art, and role of cultural artifacts in our understanding of who we are. I will use a combination of ancient and modern craft techniques to create a series of sculptural vessels. The vessels are electroformed copper over carved wax, and cloisonné enamel—an ancient craft where layers of colored glass are melted into wire designs—is applied over the copper. Using this ancient craft and bringing it into a contemporary art context, I am exploring the connections that artists from different times and places share with one another.

Mehrdad Mirzaie


Discipline: Visual and Studio Arts

IG:@mrdadmirzaie

Website: https://mehrdadmirzaiee.com/

Bio: Mehrdad Mirzaie is a multidisciplinary artist from Iran, based in the US, whose work predominantly revolves around the image-based medium with a deep focus on reinterpreting images of the past and the interplay between past and present. His artistic practice has shown an exploration of the power of images as vessels of historical narratives.

Project Description: I aim to create a photo installation as part of an extensive project exploring Iran's contemporary history. This venture aims to deeply investigate the collective memory of the Iranian people. The focal point will be an immersive visual narrative about the victims of the January 8, 2020 tragedy, when an Islamic Republic regime's missile downed a civilian aircraft, claiming 176 lives.

Nita Blum


Discipline: Film

IG:@nitarblum.mov

Website: https://nitablum.com/

Bio: A filmmaker and faculty member at The Sidney Poitier New American Film School at Arizona State University, Nita Blum boasts a fifteen-year career. During this time, she has built her expertise with renowned organizations like National Geographic, Sundance, and The History Channel, contributing to producing and editing documentary-based content. Passionate about her advocacy, she actively supports women filmmakers and artists, championing their voices and contributions within the industry.

Project Description: <"Fields to Loaves," a documentary, delves into the intricate journey of bread-making, tracing it from farmers' hands to our tables. Focused on the heroes of this local industry—the farmers, artisan bakers, and communities—we honor their role in creating this daily sustenance. Employing an observational filmmaking style, the project aims to vividly capture these individuals, serving as a visual homage to those nurturing our nourishment. This cinematic narrative serves as both an appreciation of their efforts and a meditation on the significance of this everyday staple.

Rebecca Pipkin

Discipline: Multidisciplinary Arts

IG: @pipkincreates

Website: rebeccapipkinfineart.com

Bio: Rebecca Padilla-Pipkin is a Puerto Rican interdisciplinary visual artist and educator living and working in Phoenix, Arizona. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Art from the University of Oklahoma and a Master of Fine Arts at Arizona State University. After moving to the United States at age 10, she has lived a transient life and is influenced by the many places she has loved. Her work explores ecologies of place through a wide variety of materials and processes that index moments of interaction and connection between the human and more-than-human.  

Project Description: South of the Sky Harbor Airport and adjacent to an industrial park is a borrow pit (a hole created to remove earthen material to be used to fill or construct another location) which unexpectedly evolved into a wetlands, now existing as an accidental habitat. This site provides an avenue to explore our intended and unintended effects as humans in a more-than-human world.Through the creation of natural dyes, sculptural and textile works, and an archive of digital scans, I will develop a site-responsive body of work in collaboration with the ecology of the borrow pit.

Rembrandt Quiballo


Discipline: Media and Digital Arts

IG:@rembrandtquiballo

Bio: Rembrandt Quiballo is a visual artist and educator based in Phoenix, Arizona. Quiballo was born in the city of Manila in the Philippines. Social and political unrest would compel his family to leave the country, eventually immigrating to the United States. He received a BFA in Painting/Photography and a BA in Philosophy from the University of Arizona and holds a MFA in Photography from Arizona State University. Through the moving image, his work explores mass media and its effects on social and political history.

Project Description: I propose to create experiential installations that integrate my time-based work with emerging projection mapping technology to foster a critical dialogue about the profound role of art in driving social and political change. My aim is to portray protest and revolution as a universal concept, molded by each society's distinct historical and cultural backgrounds, yet resonating with the innate human longing for freedom, justice, and equality.

Ri Lindegren


Discipline: Multidisciplinary Arts

IG:@danceswithtechaz

Website:www.danceswithtech.com

Bio: Ri Lindegren is a dance and media artist, academic, educator, and DEI advocate. Ri specializes in developing social somatic experiences across movement genres and building interactive media spaces that support play and wellness. Ri opened Dances With Tech LLC, a videography and creative technology consulting company for live performance.

Project Description: This project is a four-part interactive playspace for adults to connect with four core emotions: sadness, anger, joy, and surprise. Each of the four interactive environments are designed to be pop-up and mobile. The project will include a touch-sensitive tunnel full of surprises, reclining seats that help ease sadness, a mini trampoline river that will have you jumping for joy, and a communal screambox to release anger. As participants move through the experience and encounter different structures, objects, and media, they will be encouraged to connect to their bodies and emotions through exploration, rest, reflection, and most of all, play.

Rogelio Juarez


Discipline: Literary Arts

IG:@rogeliomybrogelio

Bio: Rogelio Juarez is a fiction writer from Phoenix Arizona, a recent graduate of Cornell’s MFA program and a MacDowell fellow, and a alumni of VONA/Voices and Tin House Summer Workshop. He’s currently at work on a short story collection and a novel.

Project Description: The State of my Heart – a collection of ten sprawling short stories about the Southwest, Mexican Americans and Mexicans and Indigenous people and whiteness, race/culture/class, embeddedness and complicity, the knots of history and the way people create new futures. Situated on both sides of the border, the collection is a microcosm of the Southwest - of documenting and upending the liminal and brutal truths of living between cultures and empires, mistakes and possibility.

Ruby Morales


Discipline: Dance

IG:@rubezyo

Website: Rubymorales.com

Bio: Ruby Morales is committed to equity, facilitating life-affirming spaces, and cultivating community relationships rooted in reciprocity, trust, and love through artmaking. She's a dance artivist investigating culturally informed teaching methods, circular leadership models, and her relationship with movement as a bgirl and Mexican style cumbia. She's toured with renowned creative Liz Lerman and Yvonne Monotya. She's a company dancer and the Resource Director for CONTRA-TIEMPO and a co-founder of The Pachanga Collective. Ruby is the inaugural recipient of The Association of Performing Arts Professional's Spark for Change award and the 2023 Performing Artist Phoenix Mayor's Arts award (AZ).

Project Description: Por Nosotras Comemos is an intimate and powerful 40 min. dance theater piece rooted in maternal ancestry and legacy. Performed by Ruby Morales, her mom Miriam Zavala, and musician Ernie Nuñez they will take you through an evening of storytelling, love, delicious Mexican food, dance, and music. The overall piece embodies Miriam’s multiple transitions from life in Mexico to the U.S., her deep commitment to her children, both of Ruby and Miriam’s roles as eldest daughters in immigrant family homes, the lessons of love Miriam instilled in Ruby, and the powerful work they’ve done to dismantle harmful patriarchal patterns. Through solos and duets Ruby will represent the generational healing it took for her to be who she is today, a free, empowered, Mexican Bgirl, and her mom will represent the labor and love it took for this to become her truth. Using both of their cultural dance knowledge of Cumbia and Ruby’s of Breaking they’ll embody a blend of dance styles– portraying the journey of knowledge and how generations learn, grow, and surpass dreams their ancestors weren’t allowed to imagine. This work is 1 of a 4-dance legacy series that honors the divine feminine in Ruby’s maternal matriarch and the 4 generations of women that are alive today.

Russ Kazmierczak Jr.


Discipline: Multidisciplinary Arts

IG:@amazingazcomics

Website:https://jeff-k.com/dog-years

Bio: Russ Kazmierczak Jr. is a cartoonist, multi-modal writer, and performer. He uses his diverse skills to inspire and teach others. He leads comic book making workshops for teens at the Phoenix Art Museum, libraries and bookstores. Since 2010, he has published Amazing Arizona Comics, which explores Arizona news and culture.

Project Description: My team is creating the graphic novella Dog Tales, a sequel and spinoff of Dog Years. Unlike the singular narrative of the original, Dog Tales will be an anthology graphic novella with three parts, though it will continue the tradition of depicting inmates as anthropomorphic dogs. The first parts expands the original story, following the main character’s struggles after his release from prison. It will center structural impediments ex-convicts face while trying to reintegrate. The second part explores my experience helping prisoners and ex-prisoners turn their stories into comics. The third part collects minicomics created by inmates at workshops.

Samaria Winans


Discipline: Visual and Studio Arts

IG:@samwfilm and @bauhausbashas

Bio: Samaria Winans is Latinx photographer born & raised in Phoenix, Arizona. Photography has allowed Samaria to control the narrative of themselves and the communities that make up their identity. Samaria’s photography takes memories drenched in a grim reality and contrasts them with welcoming customs and decor from Latino culture that help them to heal and resolve conflicts that traveled with them outside of West Phoenix.

Project Description: I will be photographing numerous individuals & families of several trailer parks in Phoenix to encapsulate their trailer park lifestyle. The series of pictures I’ll capture will be portraits of the community members. Additionally, the interior and exterior of their mobile homes will be photographed to document the differences of each individual or family in the community. I’ll also capture each member carrying out a couple of their most important daily activities as naturally as possible. All my images captured will be printed as large photos to be displayed for the public’s viewing.

Shomit Barua


Discipline: Intermedia: Installation + Performance, TechArt

IG:@shomijah

Website:shomitbarua.com

Bio: Shomit Barua is an intermedia artist specializing in eco+bioacoustics, responsive environments, and emergent narratives. Combining everyday technologies with esoteric programming languages, he blurs the line between installation and performance, weaving together sound, object, and image. Digital and analog techniques are fused to investigate his principle subject: the presence of the mind and body in a physical space.

Project Description: SCATR is a vertically-integrated, cloud-based platform for the deployment of distributed, location-aware, immersive, audiovisual experiences. This platform can be controlled by any device that can access the internet (cellphone, tablet, laptop) and can be experienced on any phone without downloading an app. SCATR is a web-based application that is a critique of the technologies associated with networks and surveillance; processes that could be used to infringe one's privacy are repurposed and appropriated for creative audiovisual texturing and spatialization.

Tiesha Harrison


Discipline: Visual and Studio Arts

IG:@iamundefinedart

Website:www.iamundefinedart.com

Bio: Tiesha Harrison is a Storytelling Visual Artist who uses art to engage, educate, uplift and transform the community. She facilitates healing art workshops and experiences to bring awareness to important topics like mental health and domestic violence. Her purpose is to use art to connect with the trauma-informed community.

Project Description: Sunflower Soul Project is an art immersive experience that will bring 27 families together to share stories who lost a loved one to gun and/or domestic violence. My sister, Delores Smith was 27 years old when she was murdered on December 19, 2021.This project will serve as a healing experience for grieving families and be a resource to express raw emotions through storytelling, community-building, collaboration and most importantly ART. I will collaborate and connect through trauma-informed activities with the families to create mixed media collage portraits in celebration of their loved ones. Healing through Art.


2023 Cohort

alejandro acierto


Photo credit:  Colleen Keihm
Discipline:  Visual art (or interdisciplinary artist)

Bio
alejandro t. acierto is an artist, musician, and curator whose work is largely informed by legacies of colonialism found within human relationships to technology and material cultures. Working within and across expanded forms of documentary, new media, creative scholarship, and sound, his works have been shown internationally at the Havana Biennial in Matanzas, Cuba, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), ISSUE (NYC), Radialsystem (Berlin), and MCA Chicago, among others. He is Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts and Performance at Arizona State University, New College located on ceded territories of the Akimel O’odham and Pee Posh peoples.

Jada Renée Allen

JadaReneeAllen.jpg
Photo credit:Jada Renée Allen
Discipline: Literary arts and multidisciplinary arts

Bio

Jada Renée Allen is a writer, educator, and two-headed Black girl from Chicago, Illinois. A 2022 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest winner, she has received fellowships, scholarships, and support from Tin House, the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, Community of Writers, and VONA, among others. Her work either appears or is forthcoming in the Academy of American Poets' “Poem-a-Day," Hayden's Ferry Review, Paris Review Daily, Virginia Quarterly Review, Wildness, and elsewhere. She has received grants from the Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture and the Arizona Commission on the Arts. Currently, she lives on U.S.-occupied O'odham Jewed, Akimel O'odham, and Hohokam lands.

Diana Calderon

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Photo credit: KatieAnn Franklin, 2020
Discipline: Interdisciplinary art

Bio

Diana Calderon is an interdisciplinary artist and educator. Her art explores the human condition, ancestral roots (personal history, stories, location), her migrant journey, processes, disrupting traditional instruction and personal filters or patterns. Calderon's pieces can be described as archiving and documenting on abstract books, creating sculptural installations, performance art, sometimes murals. She holds a BFA in intermedia plus one year and summer-mester towards an MFA. Calderon is a former charter school administrator currently teaching creative workshops for all stages and coaching developing professionals. Has been featured in Southwest Contemporary Magazine, KJZZ Fronteras Desk & Sounds of The City, ASU State Press, Medium.com, as well as speaker for Creative Mornings.

Isaac Caruso


Photo credit:  Kelly Ferry
Discipline: Murals / storytelling for experimentation / innovation

Bio

Hello, my name is Isaac Nicholas Caruso. I’m a 34 year old artist and creative director born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. I am currently creating the first picture book ever illustrated entirely with murals. 52 pages of the book are being painted across my home state, all telling one cohesive story. It is a love letter to the Southwest and a book written for the neurodivergent demographic. I hope it will inspire people of all ages who, like me, love to daydream.

Joshua Castañeda


Photo credit: Isaac Torres
Discipline: Multi-disciplinary

Bio

Being inspired by public artwork I began working with artists around me, learning, as well as refining my skills through various mediums. With those lessons I found my artistic voice. I use the world around me to represent a moment in time with small visual icons, connecting moments to a physical tangible object. Today I am currently living and working in Phoenix Arizona using my projects to connect with the community through art.

Raquel Denis

 

Photo credit: 𝖢𝗁𝗋𝗂𝗌𝗍𝖺𝗅 𝖠𝗇𝗀𝖾𝗅𝗂𝗊𝗎𝖾 𝖯𝖺𝗌𝗁𝖺𝗂𝖺𝗇

Discipline: Music/poetry

Bio

Raquel Denis is a singer-songwriter and poet based in Akimel O'otham land. Her heart-centered folk songs range from meditative to visceral and offer raw expressions of grief, worth, forgiveness, defiance and familial love.

Francisco Diaz


Discipline: Upcycle and textile art 

Bio

Francisco Diaz is a slow fashion sewist and founder of Thems. - a queer collective aimed at amplifying queer creativity in Phoenix and beyond.

Estrella Esquilín


Photo credit: Zhane'l Speaks
Discipline: Multi-disciplinary visual art

Bio

Estrella Esquilín (she/her) is a multi-disciplinary visual artist, arts administrator, and independent cultural strategist with experience working to support arts workers within large and small universities, local government and nonprofit organizations. Esquilín is intuitively inspired by spatial justice with a curiosity for how people interact with, relate to, and impact each other in built and natural environments. She embeds her values of integrity, compassion, candor, community, service and creativity into her studio practice, administrative processes and creative professional development to narrow gaps of inequity within the arts and culture sector. She holds a Master of Fine Art degree in Interdisciplinary Studio Art from Arizona State University and a Bachelor of Fine Art in Printmaking from Kansas City Art Institute.

Fausto Fernandez

 

Photo credit: Michael Woodall
Discipline: Mixed media paintings and site-specific public art

Bio

Fausto Fernandez was born in El Paso, Texas, and grew up in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, he currently lives in Phoenix Arizona. His artworks include a variety of paintings, public art, and community engagement projects.

Fernandez ideas develop from questioning his upbringing and are inspired by communities and societies that expand beyond his cultural identity. He has created artworks inspired by mathematical equations, technology, preservation of culture and mythology.

In Arizona, his paintings are included in the collection of The Heard Museum, Phoenix Art Museum and Tucson Museum of Art. Public art works include Scottsdale Public Art Canal Convergence; the terrazzo floor at The Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport; a sculpture at Helios Educational Foundation; and a sculpture for the Alamar park in Avondale.

Aileen Frick

 

Discipline: Mixed media

Bio

Aileen Frick is a 2D mixed media collage artist that creates art using torn pieces of magazines and handmade paper, overlaid with acrylic, and oil paints. The influence of impressionism is reflected in the use of paper which at a distance mimic palette knife. She allows her intuition to guide the selection of printed materials for collage. Close up, the collage pieces become more focused, and the viewer discovers the messages that are included in the imagery. The result weaves in words and images that tell a story whose meaning reflects the intention of the final piece.

Erin Kong

 

Photo credit: Ceci Cruz
Discipline: Culture worker - music, poetry, performance

Bio

Erin Kong is a diasporic Korean interdisciplinary culture worker based in so-called phoenix, arizona. Their work explores family mythology, vengeance, and love. Their independent music project, 'DOE', was released in summer 2022 under the name SOOJUNG. Their work is forthcoming in Sonora Review, and they have been featured as a visual artist at Modified Arts. They love boiling-hot soups, crying, and making music. www.erinkong.com [erinkong.com] or @soojungsoup on Instagram. 

John Lafferty


Photo credit: Criss Robles (IG: @akidnamedcriss)
Discipline: Multi-disciplinary art

Bio
Born in Phoenix with Lakota roots, John Lafferty is a multi-disciplinary artist that blends modern design and traditional indigenous motifs via his brand, YEK.

Through fashion and other forms of design, John provides a sense of spiritual protection to all that receive and carry his products. A microcosm and affirmation for the safety of home that is always with us as we step out into the world.
John believes art is where community meets creativity. His constant experimentation and innovation continue to give birth to new styles, designs and ideas, hopefully creating an impact and influencing the following generation.

Charissa Lucille

 

Photo credit: Josh Loeser
Discipline: Multimedia art

Bio

Charissa Lucille is a multimedia artist who earned their BFA in Journalism and Mass Communications from Arizona State University in 2014. They are currently sewing, self publishing, and running Wasted Ink Zine Distro and Paper Jam + Print. Lucille uses textiles, photography, bookmaking and zines to explore their identity and activism as it relates to disability, neurodiversity, and queerness. Their artwork has been exhibited locally at Northlight Gallery, First Studio Gallery, and Raiz Gallery and has been published in Love Quilting Magazine, UPPERCASE Magazine, Bolt Zine, Femme Fotale, among others. Find their work at www.charissalucille.com [charissalucille.com].

Gloria Martinez-Granados


Photo credit: Sam Gomez
Discipline: Interdisciplinary art

Bio

Born in Guanajuato, Mexico, raised and based in Phoenix, Arizona. Gloria is an interdisciplinary artist creating with indigenous practices, adding a contemporary approach by including printmaking, assemblage, installation and performance to the more traditional arts of beadwork and weaving. Through this process, she develops themes around identity, dreams, place, home and land.

In 2019 she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Printmaking from Arizona State University’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. Martinez-Granados is currently exhibiting at the Phoenix Art Museum from September 2022 till May 2023 as a recipient of the inaugural Sally and Richard Lehmann Emerging Artists Awards Exhibition.

Sean Medlin

 

Photo Credit: Nina Paz, IG: @ninapazphotography

Discipline: Poetry & Rap

Bio

Sean Avery Medlin writes raps, poems, and sometimes essays, while teaching young folks to do the same. Their art questions the limitations of Black masculinity, media representation, and personal narrative. Medlin’s work has been featured in Los Angeles Review of Books, Chicago Tribune, Afropunk, Blavity, and Teen Vogue. 

All of Medlin’s work is available online at superseanavery.com [superseanavery.com]. 808s & Otherworlds: Memories, Remixes, & Mythologies is their debut collection of essays and poetry, available in audio and print everywhere books are sold in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada.

Jessica Palomo


Photo credit: Jeff Chabot
Discipline: Drawing

Bio

Jessica Palomo received her BFA in Sculpture from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX and her MFA in Drawing from Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ. Her work deals with the grief of losing a loved one, a trauma that can overload and fracture the conscious mind, causing a shattered emotional state. Through abstraction and mark-making, she explores the dynamics of this ruptured reality that place identity and emotion in a liminal, ambiguous space. Her work has been exhibited internationally at the Palazzo Rinaldi in Italy, the Contemporary Art Space in China and locally at the Phoenix Art Museum and the Tucson Museum of Art in Arizona. Jessica Palomo currently lives and works in Phoenix, Arizona, her work is represented by Bentley Gallery.

Christina Ramirez


Photo credit: Christina Ramirez
Discipline: Painting

Bio

Christina Ramirez is a process artist interested in the experimentation of paint, mixed media, and sculpture. Her inspiration is taken from Nature and the light of the AZ skies. She received her painting degree from ASU and exhibits in many alternative spaces and galleries in Phoenix. She has received grants from Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture, Arizona Commission on the Arts, Vermont Studio Center and Contemporary Forum, and was included in the New American City exhibition at the Arizona State University Museum. She lives and works in the historic Garfield Neighborhood with her two children and artist-husband, Brian Boner.

Philip Gabriel Steverson

PhilipSteverson.jpg
Photo credit: Philip Steverson
Discipline: Multidisciplinary Artist

Bio

Philip Gabriel Steverson is a multi-disciplinary artist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Early signs of creativity presented itself through poetry when he was 10 years old with influence from Langston Hughes. Growing up on the streets of West Philadelphia, Philip experienced more than an average child before the age of fifteen, which matured him faster than his peers. Since his adolescent years, he never allowed his environment, or situation, to influence the paths charted for his future.

By using education, Philip Gabriel honed his artistic practice, experienced different cultures, and built a network of artists that collaborated and supported his future. His growth as a young man is a symbol of hope not only for those following after him, but to himself as he continues to prove his belonging in this world. Philip’s work takes shape through fashion design, poetry, contemporary art and other collaborative outlets. The paintings he creates range from the stigma of institutionalized youths, his religious background, loss, and the highs of being black in America.

Lisa Tolentino


Photo credit: Jill McNamara

Discipline: Multi-disciplinary 

Bio

Lisa Tolentino is a conceptual artist, musician and interaction designer in Phoenix. Her work embeds computational and algorithmic processes to create new music, performances, and textile designs that directly innovate on traditional forms from her Filipino heritage.Tolentino co-directs urbanSTEW, a Phoenix-based arts-technology non-profit with award-winning installations commissioned by national and international venues including Phoenix Art and the Heard Museums in Phoenix; Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; and the Open Ears Festival in Kitchener, Canada. You can find her performing regularly with music groups Crossing 32nd Street and vocal-electronics duo, Rules of Play. http://lisatolentino.com [lisatolentino.com]

Lucretia Torva


Photo credit: Jessica Abril
Discipline: Painting

Bio
Lucretia Torva has lived in the “Valley” for 25 years, painting murals from Scottsdale to Chandler, Mesa to Goodyear. She had the good fortune of growing up in Europe, experiencing some well-known highlights of Western Art and Architecture. Upon receiving her MFA, she held a college teaching position for several years at a liberal arts college on the east coast. A circuitous path led her to becoming self employed as an artist in 2000 and she hasn’t looked back. Along with painting for income, she maintains a fine art practice and exhibits her art regularly.​

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Staff Contact

Sarah León Moreno,
Grants and Community Engagement Director,
602-262-6164

sarah.leon@phoenix.gov​ 

Schedule virtual meeting​