Artist Professional Development Grants | Round 30 Recipients
April 2, 2026Great Meadows Foundation Awards Grants to 15 Kentucky Artists
Latest grant cycle marks more than $1.4 million in funding given to artists in the state
LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY, July 24, 2026 – The Great Meadows Foundation is proud to announce the recipients of its 31st round of Artist Professional Development Grants, awarding 15 grants to visual artists across the Kentucky region. These competitive grants are designed to support travel and research opportunities that strengthen artistic practices, deepen critical engagement, and foster lasting professional connections beyond the state.
Through this round of funding, selected artists will travel to major exhibitions, attend professional conferences, and participate in residencies that will directly impact their creative development. By encouraging Kentucky-based artists to connect with the broader national and international contemporary art community, these grants expand the visibility and ambition of the region’s visual arts landscape.
“The Artist Professional Development Grant program is rooted in the belief that engagement with national and international conversations in the contemporary art world is essential to artistic growth,” said Julien Robson, Director of the Great Meadows Foundation. “I’m continually inspired by the curiosity and drive of Kentucky artists, and proud to support the travel and activities that help them evolve their practices and enrich our artistic community.”
Since the launch of the Artist Professional Development Grant program in 2016, Great Meadows Foundation has awarded more than $1.4 million in grants to more than 250 Kentucky artists and curators, enabling travel to more than 140 cities in 40 countries, investing in the region’s creative future by nurturing cross-cultural exchange and professional advancement.
More information about the recipients and their travel activities, submitted by the artists, can be found below.
###
Great Meadows Foundation Artist Professional Development Grants:
Round 31 Recipients
Lucy Azubuike
she/her
Frankfort, KY
Where will you be traveling?
Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota
What will you be traveling for?
I will attend the 32nd International Sculpture Conference while participating in artist studio visits, networking, and cultural research. I will engage in keynote presentations, panel discussions, guided tours, and visits with artists whose work explores ecology, public art, and interdisciplinary practice. Highlights include the Airport Art Tour and Silverwood Park environmental art program. This experience will expand my professional network, deepen my understanding of contemporary sculpture and public art, and strengthen my ability to create nature-based, community-centered projects that inspire dialogue and environmental awareness in Kentucky and beyond.
Can you give a brief summary of your artistic practice?
I am a multidisciplinary artist working across photography, sculpture, installation, performance, and community engagement. My practice explores the relationship between humanity and nature, using trees as metaphors for resilience, memory, healing, and interconnectedness. Through my lifelong #YouMeTreeArts project, I discover naturally occurring forms in trees that reveal nature as complete works of art. My work is informed by indigenous knowledge, ecofeminism, feminism, travel, and cross-cultural dialogue. I invite viewers to see that nature reflects who we are—that by finding nature, we can ultimately find ourselves.
What are some of the inspirations for your practice?
I am primarily inspired by nature itself, Indigenous knowledge systems, ecofeminism, travel, and the everyday stories embedded in landscapes. Trees are my greatest teachers, revealing resilience, memory, transformation, and interconnectedness. My practice is also influenced by artists who challenge perception and expand the possibilities of art, including Yayoi Kusama, Marcel Duchamp, El Anatsui, and Bill Viola, among many others.
Dr. Jabani Bennett
she / they
Louisville, Kentucky
Where will you be traveling?
Los Angeles, California
What will you be traveling for?
I will attend Black Portraiture[s]: Los Angeles: The Black Built Environment, where artists, curators, and scholars gather to advance contemporary conversations in Black visual culture. Through participation in the conference, museum research, and exploration of sites of Black-led placemaking, I will examine how artists construct narrative through fiber, sculpture, and spatial practice, deepening my understanding of material storytelling, cultural memory, and place. This experience will inform new bodies of work that extend my painting practice through layered materials while investigating presence, belonging, and cultural inheritance.
Can you give a brief summary of your artistic practice?
I create paintings, collage, and fiber-based works that explore portraiture, belonging, and material storytelling through an expressionistic visual language. Rooted in my Kentucky family’s traditions of photography, gospel music, and jazz, my work merges representational imagery with painterly abstraction and tactile layers to examine cultural memory, folklore, and place. Working from photographic research, observation, and experimentation, I create richly layered surfaces that evoke presence through material, gesture, and rhythm while expanding the sculptural possibilities of my practice.
What are some of the inspirations for your practice?
My practice is rooted in the artistic traditions of my Kentucky family and Louisville’s vibrant creative community. I am continually inspired by local artists, curators, mentors, and peers whose artistic practices, mentorship, and generosity have shaped my development, including my father James G. Bennett, Sunshine Joe Mallard, Elmer Lucille Allen, Lida Gordon, Ramona “Afefe” Dallum, Michelle K. Amos, Sandra Charles, Ed Hamilton, and Dr. Robert Douglas. My work is also informed by Gordon Parks, Romare Bearden, Sam Gilliam, Tom Feelings, Leo and Diane Dillon, and Ezra Jack Keats, as well as photography, gospel music, jazz, folklore, and everyday observation.
Aaron Cohick
he/him
Louisville, KY
Where will you be traveling?
New York City
What will you be traveling for?
I will look closely at artists’ books that are important to my practice but that I have never seen in person. My plan is to look at publications by Granary Books at Columbia University Special Collections and a selection of works by the artist Ken Campbell at the NY Public Library. I’ll also meet with the directors of Granary Books, and visit the Center for Book Arts, the Tibor de Nagy Gallery, The Met, and MOMA.
Can you give a brief summary of your artistic practice?
I am an artist-publisher who works under the name NewLights Press. The core of my work is making books and prints, either as a solo practitioner or in collaboration with other artists and writers. All of the work is united by a close attention to process: to the physical processes of making and material, to the mental processes of reading (both text and image), and to the social and political processes of collaboration.
What are some of the inspirations for your practice?
In my work I look at the history of writing systems, books, and reading from all over the globe and across time, from ancient and medieval manuscripts, through Modernist design, to current digital practices. Particular artists and writers that I return to again and again are: Nancy Spero, Jack Spicer, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Ken Campbell, Xu Bing, Emily McVarish, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, John Yau, Amos Kennedy, Wim Crouwel, Philip Guston, and Georges Perec.
j.a. cowan
Louisville, KY
Where will you be traveling?
Munich and the Ruhr area, Germany; Vienna, Austria
What will you be traveling for?
In Germany, I will attend Manifesta 16 Ruhr, and visit the Cy Twombly collection and current exhibitions at The Brandhorst in Munich. I will then travel to Austria to view contemporary art exhibitions Lives & Works in Wien at Kunsthalle Wien and Terminal Piece at Mumok. I will additionally visit exhibitions Pablo Picasso – Francis Bacon at the Albertina, and current exhibitions and collections at Albertina Klosterneuburg and Belvedere 21.
Can you give a brief summary of your artistic practice?
I am an abstract painter, presently working in small and medium size formats. I use acrylics, pen, pencil, tape, & house paint. I refer to myself as a painter, not an Artist. I believe that the term Artist carries a weight which should not be self applied. Paint is a fixed reality, Art is an ambiguity better left to more assured minds to discern & debate.
By using color, shape, balance & painterly devices, I attempt to suggest unifying themes of the shared human experience. I advocate for aesthetics & concept to work as co-equals, & on an elevated plain in the pursuit of Great Art.
What are some of the inspirations for your practice?
I have always been drawn to non-representational abstract expressionism, because in its pure and successful form it requires only two elements: A skilled Artist, and a willing audience. To my reckoning, great abstract painting is an invitation, not an imposition. Non-representational abstraction creates an opportunity for the viewer to complete the circle of creativity by finding their own place within the work.
Rebekah Flowers
she/they
Louisville, Kentucky
Where will you be traveling?
Lagos and Ibadan, Nigeria
What will you be traveling for?
I will be attending the Lagos Biennial. This year’s theme, Museum of Things Unseen, drew me, especially after researching the curatorial team and the history of this Biennale. I am excited to see how the topic of institutional critique, narrative development, and political influence come to fruition across the different exhibitions. I’ll spend much of my time in Lagos visiting, and engaging with the work of the biennial, but for two days I will also be traveling to Ibadan, Nigeria to meet a fellow photographer. They will accompany me over two days to a number of openings, gallery talks, and networking events.
Can you give a brief summary of your artistic practice?
I am a multidisciplinary artist whose practice is rooted in photography, but spans across, printmaking and installation. I use my work to address concepts surrounding ancestral veneration and institutional critique by exploring resilience, collective memory, archival absence, and the African diaspora. Much of my work focuses on deconstructing narratives surrounding plantation tourism, and reparations. I use existing imagery and historical objects to reimagine narratives by focusing on storytelling and healing. Now I am also exploring ideas surrounding the black urban experience in how it connects to slavery through traditional forms of leisure.
What are some of the inspirations for your practice?
I am first and always inspired by my family and familial traditions. Outside of that, much of my love for artmaking has grown while observing the passion of many of my predecessors for their respective mediums. The likes of Carrie Mae Weems, Fred Wilson, Pepón Osorio, Gordon Parks, Hans Haake, Lorna Simpson, and Patrick Nagatani keep me in a forever loop of inspiration and awe. Not only am I inspired by visual artists, but also poets and academics. James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, and Toni Morrison are visionaries, and inspire me to see my work as multidimensional and utilize literary devices to further immerse myself within my familial tradition of storytelling.
Valerie Sullivan Fuchs
she/her
Shelbyville, KY
Where will you be traveling?
Venice, Italy
What will you be traveling for?
I will visit the Venice Biennale, In Minor Keys curated by Koyo Kouoh, with themes that
echo my ecological relational entanglement concerns, reappraising human relationships, starting from people’s own backyards. Of particular interest are the Austrian and Finland pavilions, Marina Abramovic’s Transforming Energy at the space Gallerie dell’Academia di Venezia, Canicula at Complesso dell’Ospedaletto with Maya Watanabe’s Jarkov, Carrie Schneider’s Sphinx temporal material explorations of film/
tech/feminism. I will also meet organizers of Nature Speaks and the NICHE Center for Environmental Humanities at Ca’Foscari University of Venice.
Can you give a brief summary of your artistic practice?
I am a new-media artist working in video, performance, imaging, installation, sound and sculpture. I make large scale digital prints and short form videos that capture details of stillness and quiet interactions in nature. Through this practice I explore ideas of connectivity, entanglement and time. My central concerns focus on the invisible exchange of energy and temporal aspects of video, place and nature with ideas of entanglement. My material engagement with transparent layers, saturated monochromatic colors, light and sunlight, shifts viewers’ visual and temporal perceptions that slide between perceptible/imperceptible, separate/merged, and surface/depth. I am drawn to new media for physiological effects on senses-like
persistence of vision-that indicate real concrete changes in us and nature.
What are some of the inspirations for your practice?
Each day I record images of a small woods and creek. These are ready-mades, found objects of a woods, that is an inter-dependent being that needs nothing from me, yet I feel a presence, a sentient acknowledgement and sometimes a response. I work on computers for the ease of editing and how digital media shares the same sensorial qualities found in nature: immediacy, motion, sound, duration, and accumulated visual traces of time. These contradictory realities/concerns are fracturing, fragmenting and deepening my research on media’s impact on sense ratios, (Marshall McCluhan) the sentience of nature (Dr. Emoto, Peter Wohlleben, Michael Polan) & quantum entanglement (Karen Barad).
Kris Grenier
she/they
Cynthiana, KY
Where will you be traveling?
Venice, Italy
What will you be traveling for?
I’ll travel to the 61st Venice Biennale to research contemporary artists working at the intersection of landscape, identity, materiality, and multisensory installation. Through focused study of the Giardini, Arsenale, and Collateral exhibitions, I’ll examine how artists construct immersive environments and communicate embodied experiences across cultural contexts. This research will directly inform my transition from two-dimensional, needle-felted landscapes to installation-based work.
Can you give a brief summary of your artistic practice?
I am a fiber artist and long-distance backpacker who creates needle-felted artworks inspired by landscapes I’ve encountered on foot. After hiking more than 10,000 miles—including the entire Appalachian Trail and Pacific Crest Trail—I use wool to honor the places I’ve been and share a message of environmental stewardship. Grounded in Environmental Studies, my practice is evolving from two-dimensional felted landscapes toward immersive textile installations that investigate how people experience and remember space.
What are some of the inspirations for your practice?
My work draws inspiration from the Group of Seven, the Hudson River School, and contemporary artists including Jean Shin and Elnara Nasirli, whose material and installation-based practices expand ideas of landscape. Years of long-distance backpacking, academic environmental study, and chronic illness have shaped my understanding of wilderness as both a physical and emotional space. I’m interested in contemporary art that explores ecology, memory, identity, and embodied relationships to place through materiality and immersive environments.
Dominic Guarnaschelli
he/him
Louisville, KY
Where will you be traveling?
Milan, Turin, and Bologna, Italy
What will you be traveling for?
I will participate in the residency program at Gate 44, a fabrication and printmaking studio, in Milan, Italy working alongside other international artists. During this time, I will meet with other artists in their studios, connect with curators and visit several galleries and museums throughout the city, notably the retrospective of Constantino Nivola at the Triennale Milano. I will also see the city wide retrospective of Marisa Merz among other exhibits throughout Turin. Finally, I will visit exhibits in Bologna coinciding with ArteFiera to encounter a wide cross-section of contemporary art practices from across Italy.
Can you give a brief summary of your artistic practice?
As an interdisciplinary artist, my studio practice is situated at the intersection of painting, installation, and sculpture. I create research-driven work that draws on the subjects of culture, science, religion and mythology, critically examining the connection between these fields.
What are some of the inspirations for your practice?
I am deeply inspired by artists whose work has repeatedly moved me in surprising ways with each encounter; whether it’s Eva Hesse, W.G. Sebald, Bontecou, Bartok, Kurosawa, the Monsu Desiderio or Morandi. The imprint from looking at, reading, and listening to other artists, writers and musicians, past or present, can fuel studio work.
Marjorie Guyon
Lexington, Kentucky
Where will you be traveling?
Santa Fe, New Mexico
What will you be traveling for?
I have been invited by CODAWorx to participate in The Artist as Entrepreneur, a Spotlight panel featuring Nicolas Soren Goodich, Founder + Director of The Luminous Community Center; J Muzacz, Owner of The Mosaic Workshop; and myself as Chief Creative Officer of the I Was Here Project. The conversation will be moderated by Uriah Bueller, Chief Creative Officer of Parasoleil. This session examines the expanding role of artists in public art: not only as creators, but as collaborators, strategists, fundraisers, negotiators, and community builders. I will contribute my experience developing installations, projections, soundscape, hologram boxes, and civic memory environments.
Can you give a brief summary of your artistic practice?
My practice centers on memory, presence, and the ways public space can hold histories that have been overlooked or erased. Working across painting, photography, installation, projection, sound, and emerging technology, I create images and environments that invite viewers to see ancestry as a living force rather than a distant past. My current body of work, developed through the I Was Here project, began with the Ancestor Spirit Portraits: contemporary African Americans photographed and transformed into archetypal figures of beauty, dignity, and grace. These portraits honor the unnamed Nation Builders whose labor, intelligence, and creativity helped shape the United States but whose presence is often missing from civic memory.
What are some of the inspirations for your practice?
My inspiration is to use the power of art to create a paradigm shift in the consciousness of the country. This began in November of 2016 with a vision of an African mother and child moving like points of light across the Historic Courthouse. From that vision, I Was Here has become a nationally recognized public art and education initiative rising 200 feet on the World Trade Center. It was featured at the Octagon Museum in Washington, D.C. and launched a major national immersive installation. My desire is to transform public space through a synthesis of the arts and technology.
Katie Knudsen
she/her
Louisville, KY
Where will you be traveling?
Venice, Italy
What will you be traveling for?
I will attend the Venice Biennale, “In Minor Keys,” curated by the late Koyo Kouoh. I will explore the Arsenale, pavilions at the Giardini, and collateral events. While in Venice I plan to see Marina Abromovic’s exhibition, Jenny Saville’s figurative paintings, as well as Michael Armitage’s monumental drawings. My focus is on women artists using the body to explore identity, immersive experiences, and how artists are responding to the chaotic state of the world including political viewpoints, controversy, and how hope can be instilled through art.
Can you give a brief summary of your artistic practice?
Creating art has always been an act of rebellion for me, I make art to tell my story, to work through trauma, and to bring light to difficult topics. I am a process-driven artist who finds joy in discovery through drawing and printmaking’s methodical procedures. I make figurative art addressing feminine sexuality using the body as a tool to explore identity, suffering, and healing. I use sarcasm, appropriated imagery, and bright colors to make my work relatable and accessible while revealing my deep sensitivity and empathy.
What are some of the inspirations for your practice?
The Riot Grrrl movement of the 90’s inspired me to explore printmaking and the use of art to challenge societal norms. It also introduced me to renegade art, DIY culture, feminism, and how art fosters community and social change. Pop culture, contemporary art, politics, psychology, and art history play a major role as well. Erik Erikson’s stages of life theory, expressionists like Egon Schiele and Käthe Kollowitz, and contemporary artists Tracey Emin, Roni Horn and Hope Gangloff. My current interest is in immersive experiences, multi disciplinary collaboration, and installation.
Claire Krüeger
she/her
Louisville, Ky
Where will you be traveling?
Venice, Italy
What will you be traveling for?
I will be visiting the Venice Biennale for the first time in addition to other satellite events and the lacemaking island of Burano.
Can you give a brief summary of your artistic practice?
I am a multidisciplinary artist utilizing fiber, photography, and video to examine the human relationship to land and environment. Through material, I explore different relationships to time, such as geological changes that unfold over millions of years versus humans’ relatively short time on Earth. I work with both natural and synthetic materials, including: secondhand fibers, found objects, natural dyes, and pigments. Synthetic materials remain static over time, while natural materials fade and decay. I am interested in how our material culture is divorced from our natural environments and the devastating consequences that result from this schism.
What are some of the inspirations for your practice?
My influences include artists with unusual approaches to material and space including Kentucky fiber artist Alma Lesch, whose traditional needle skills and found materials reimagined techniques historically tied to women and the home; Alan Shields, who employed crafting techniques and humble materials into his interdisciplinary practice; and sculptor Constantin Brancusi, whose abstracted forms live both in space and through his photographs.
Jessica Page
she/her
Lexington, KY
@jessicapageartistphotographer
Where will you be traveling?
Florence and Venice, Italy
What will you be traveling for?
In Florence, I will be meeting with local artists and educators as well as viewing work by Enrico Bianda – Wilderness, among others. In Venice, I will be attending the Biennale and am specifically interested in viewing works that utilize innovative approaches to blending photography, filmmaking, and installation together. This trip will support my ongoing interest in immersive, media-rich storytelling, employing various mixed mediums and expanding my own interdisciplinary practice.
Can you give a brief summary of your artistic practice?
My practice is rooted in analog and digital photography and expands into wallpaper, fabric, ceramics, weaving, sculpture, and video to challenge the boundaries of contemporary photography. I’m drawn to materials with familial, emotional and historical weight such as those tied to domestic spaces. Objects that carry memory, texture, and care. Through themes of home, identity, and material history, I blend real and imagined narratives. I see home not as a fixed place but as complex layered stories, silences, and sensory memory. By using personal archives and fabricated objects, I explore how identity is constructed, remembered, and inherited.
What are some of the inspirations for your practice?
I draw inspiration from contemporary artists whose practices resonate with my interests in narrative, material, and space. Sophie Calle influences my approach to storytelling, self-reflection, and viewer engagement. Matthew Arthur Williams inspires my video visual language and the subtlety of portraying identity and belonging. Haegue Yang’s inventive use of domestic materials, light, and sculptural form informs my own interdisciplinary approach. Kyle Meyer’s woven portraits combining photography and patterned fabric influence my techniques of layering and hybridity. Anicka Yi’s experimental video projections onto unconventional surfaces expand my thinking around sensory experience and how moving images can inhabit unexpected material forms.
Katie Petry
she/her
Crestwood, KY
Where will you be traveling?
Sèvres & Paris, France and Venice, Italy
What will you be traveling for?
First, I will travel to Sèvres and Paris, France to focus on strengthening professional connections and engaging with collage-based practices and their relationship to broader contemporary art discourse. I will meet with former mentor Michele Landel at her studio to discuss her art practice and with curator Petra Zehner of Paris Collage Collective to discuss curatorial approaches. I will also visit several leading contemporary art institutions while in Paris. Next, I will travel to Venice to attend the 61st Venice Biennale, focusing on exhibitions by artists including Lorna Simpson, Wangechi Mutu, Arthur Jafa, Richard Prince, and Marina Abramović.
Can you give a brief summary of your artistic practice?
I am a multimedia artist creating collage and collage-based paintings that explore memory, identity, and transformation through an ecofeminist lens. Using vintage magazines, open-access photography, cyanotypes from my own photos, and paint, I create surreal compositions that reimagine the female figure and the natural world. Rooted in my experience as a woman from an immigrant family, a former nurse, and someone living with chronic illness, my practice examines how personal and ancestral histories are held within the body and shape identity. By deconstructing and recontextualizing familiar imagery, I open space for new understandings of identity and presence.
What are some of the inspirations for your practice?
Ecofeminism resonates with my belief that the flourishing of women and the natural world are deeply connected, and I draw on femme surrealism when creating alternate worlds and exploring ideas such as reclaiming autonomy and reshaping narratives. Influences include Alice Neel’s psychologically charged portraits, Deborah Roberts’ collage-based explorations of identity, Holly Roberts’ integration of photography and painting, Erin Armstrong’s merging of figure and landscape, and Rothko’s atmospheric use of scale.
Skylar Smith
she/her
Louisville, KY
Where will you be traveling?
Venice, Italy
What will you be traveling for?
I will attend the Venice Biennale. My primary focus will be the central exhibition, In Minor Keys, along with extended visits to the Arsenale and Giardini. In Minor Keys explores how contemporary artists use attentive and restorative themes—such as shrines, oases, listening, and shared learning—to sustain care, meaning, and social connection in a time marked by distraction and exhaustion. I am especially interested in work by Nick Cave, Dawn DeDeaux, Guadalupe Maravilla, Nina Katchadourian, and Bubu de la Madeleine.
Can you give a brief summary of your artistic practice?
My studio practice centers on abstract, process-driven paintings and works on paper that explore perception, consciousness, and the natural world. Through color, gesture, and form, I create images that slow attention, encourage sensory awareness, and invite meaning to emerge through experience rather than fixed narratives.
I discovered the transformative power of art at a young age. Making art became a space for imagination, attention, and possibility, an experience that continues to shape my work today. My practice has evolved through interconnected roles as an artist, educator, and curator, all grounded in a belief that art can shift perception, foster connection, and create opportunities for reflection.
What are some of the inspirations for your practice?
My work is informed by artists who use abstraction, color, and materiality to evoke embodied experience, including Mark Bradford, Mark Rothko, Hilma af Klint, Pierre Bonnard, Alma Thomas, Etel Adnan, Anish Kapoor, Georgia O’Keefe, Yayoi Kusama, Josef Albers, Paul Klee, Terry Winters, Sheila Hicks, Gunta Stolzl, and Stanley Whitney. I am equally inspired by color theory, neuroaesthetics, and research on perception, attention, and wellbeing, particularly the ways creative practice can foster presence and connection. I also draw from ecology, systems thinking, and contemplative traditions that emphasize interdependence. These influences converge in a process-driven practice that explores how color, gesture, and sensory experience can create spaces for reflection, restoration, and wonder.
Ruby T
she/ her
Louisville, KY
Where will you be traveling?
The Netherlands
What will you be traveling for?
Anchoring the trip are three exhibitions: “Wild Waters” at Framer Framed in Amsterdam, which takes as its departure point the unique water infrastructure of the Netherlands; Nieuwe Instituut’s presentation of “Another Island” by Janilda Bartolomeu, reflecting on Cape Verdean diaspora and geography; and “Prisoners of Love: Until the Sun of Freedom” by Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme at Kunstinstituut Melly, which explores collaborative study as resistance (both in Rotterdam). I’ll also be visiting a number of artist-run initiatives and community archives, as well as meeting with other artists and curators whose work also explores land politics, archives, and craft processes.
Can you give a brief summary of your artistic practice?
My work is concerned with the power and limits of both fantasy and empathy within an oppressive social order. I work in years-long spirals of inquiry, digestion, and iteration. I am currently engaged with two intertwined actions: 1. using ritual, beaded embroidery, painting, and research to attempt a radical reclamation of the sublime within the contexts of ecological catastrophe and the fraught genre of landscape painting; and 2. obsessively listening to interviews with rightwing political figures on repeat while making drawings and paintings about contemporary political spectatorship and subjecthood within rising state repression and Christian nationalism.
What are some of the inspirations for your practice?
Some of my influences include: the cartoons of Honoré Daumier and Saul Steinberg; the landscapes of Thomas Cole (romantic) and Ross Moffett (social realist); the portraits of Alice Neel; the esoteric paintings of Hilma af Klint and Ithell Colquhoun; participatory political mysticism in the work of Betty Saar and Vanessa German; and the poetry rituals of CAConrad. I also love illuminated manuscripts, sequential religious panel paintings, Maya weaving and embroidery, the political graphics of Emory Douglas, and shrines of all kinds.