¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Leslie Smith III is an abstract painter. His recent works explore the inherent personal and political properties of abstraction as they pertain to expanding notions of Black representation. Smith earned a B.F.A. from the Maryland Institute College of Art and an M.F.A. from the Yale School of Art. He exhibits both nationally and internationally, and his work is included in the permanent collections of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, the Birmingham Museum of Art, and the FRAC Auvergne in France, among others.

Paolo Arao is a Filipino-American artist working with painting, textiles and site-responsive installations. He received his B.F.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Recent solo exhibitions include: David B. Smith Gallery (Denver, CO), The Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts (Omaha, NE), The Columbus Museum (Georgia), Morgan Lehman Gallery (NYS), and Western Exhibitions (Chicago).

Kimberly Thomas is a biracial interdisciplinary sculptor and flameworker. Her narrative works are sculptural illustrations of a re-imagined world, fabrications of obscure inventions, alternate realities, and speculative futures. Her stories describe a pilgrimage through time, space and dimensions. Drawing influence from concepts, questions and theories about human nature, Thomas’s works are a ground to explore the truth, be it flawed, darkly humorous or peculiar, yet they speak to the stark realities of human existence.

Helen Lee is an artist, designer, and educator. She uses glass to explore language and diasporic identity. Lee holds an MFA in Glass from RISD and a BSAD in Architecture from MIT. Lee was a 2024 United States Artist Fellow in Craft. She is currently an Associate Professor and Head of Glass in the Art Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She also founded and proudly serves as the Director of GEEX, the Glass Education Exchange.

Sarah Slappey (b. 1984, Columbia, South Carolina) is a painter based in Brooklyn, NY. Slappey received her MFA from Hunter College in 2016. She has had solo exhibitions at Maria Bernheim Gallery (Zurich, Switzerland) and Sargent’s Daughters (New York, NY).

Malcolm Mobutu Smith is associate professor of ceramic art and director of graduate studies in the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design at Indiana University-Bloomington. Smith’s undergraduate studies include both the Kansas City Art Institute and Penn State University where he earned his B.F.A. in Ceramics. He received his M.F.A. in Ceramics from the New York College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 1996. He is a member of National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts. He is on the boards of Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts and The Marks Project.

Indira Allegra is a conceptual artist and founder of Cazimi Studio. Cazimi Studio uses weaving as a framework to creatively transform tension within different sites. The studio is unique in its emphasis on performance, publication and the integration of spiritual care as preferred design solutions. Thinking as a poet, threads of connection are discovered between seemingly disparate experiences. Moving as a weaver, these connections are interlaced into a greater whole.

Janina Myronowa received her M.F.A. at the Lviv National Academy of Fine Arts, Lviv, Ukraine in 2012, an M.F.A. at the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Wroclaw, Poland in 2013, and her Ph.D. at the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Wroclaw, Poland in 2019.