MOCA GA / Calendar

First-Person-Plural highlights the multiplicities of selves that we all encompass, and how these personalities engage within the immediacies of contemporary conditions such as, the body’s will for survival, trauma, solitude and a compassionate, collective identity. The artists in this exhibition ask viewers to consider their own emergences of self that endure over time, make way for the future and that have the potential to soothe distant memories.

Our capacity for feeling and seeing each other as complete is crucial during this time where personhood is constantly coming under fire. The sacrifices of negotiating our identities can no longer be circumvented and pointed as an individualized concern. It bleeds into the communal consciousness. Many of the work here examines how we as a society can begin to harmonize this conflict by weaving together convergences of the reflective self, within the undercurrents of culture. As you encounter the work independently, and as a whole, consider the clash that you often experience between your personal embodiments of self. Now imagine how will you make room for your own radical truths that will, in turn, transform what lies ahead.

Curated by Iman Person

Iman Person serves as WonderRoot’s Arts Innovation Specialist. She is a native Georgian with a background in arts administration, gallery development and arts education. In 2010 she received her B.F.A from Georgia State University in Studio Art and has become a noted figure in the local arts community.  Previously she has held positions at The  City of Atlanta Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs as their Social Media Administrator, and the Interim gallery Coordinator for Gallery 72.

WonderRoot’s Hughley Fellowship Program

The Hughley Artist Fellowship is WonderRoot’s signature professional development program for artists at pivotal stages in their careers. In its sixth year, the Fellowship seeks to forever impact participating artists by providing necessary tools to significantly advance and define their careers.

Find out more about the Fellowship Program here.

The Opening Reception was held on Thursday, July 12th from 6:30 – 8:30 PM at MOCA GA

The 2017/2018 WonderRoot Hughley Fellows

Anicka Austin is an Atlanta-based choreographer and movement artist. She graduated with honors from Kennesaw State University with a B.A in Dance. Austin is an artist who uses experimental and mindful use of the body to uplift beauty and search deeply for joy. She aims to create color and design savvy performances that are layered, playful, and intimate love affairs. Work that shifts perspective on how we relate to the world and how we excavate our inherent capacity to generate massive change. She acknowledges the healing power of movement and it’s necessity in our collective wellness, our ability to thrive and our connection to our ancestral roots and to each other. Exploring the healing power of color, she self-produced the ongoing collaborative exhibition CHROMA with photographer Crystal Monds. CHROMA won Best New Dance Troupe in Creative Loafings Best of Atlanta 2016 and was commissioned by Elevate Atlanta. She has been a Lucky Penny Work Room resident artist in their beautiful East Point home for nearly two year.

CC Calloway has a BFA in printmaking and Book Arts from the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia where she was selected to be an Area Scholar for her department and studies at Penland School of Craft, where she received the Windgate Scholarship Working in a wide range of media from silkscreen printing, papermaking, and sculpture. Calloway uses the process of collection and repurposing of ephemera to locate glimpses of emotional honesty in the fast-paced culture of the digital world. A prolific tweeter since age 15, she gains most of her insight through writing. Her work is the embodiment of waste both virtual and physical, creating intimate images and objects for people to connect with. She has written and self -published four books including one photography book entitled My Favorite Word is Nothing. She is currently writing her fifth book, Long Lasting Chew.

Claire Chambless is a multi-disciplinary, conceptual artist working in sculptural painting, installation, sculpture and collage. She received her B.A. in Studio Art from Davidson College in 2012, where she was the James G. Pepper Scholar and recipient of the Douglas Houchens Art Award. Over the last 10 years, she has had both solo and group exhibitions of her work in numerous venues throughout the Southeastern US and Europe. In the summer of 2016, she was granted a residency at the Villarcangel Cultural Center in Valencia, Spain. In 2017 past and slated exhibitions include numerous group shows, including the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, a solo exhibition at Bill Lowe Gallery in Atlanta, and a collaborative two-person exhibition in Los Angeles. She has received numerous research grants and published art criticism on notable contemporary artists. She currently lives and works in Atlanta.

Davion Alston (b.1992) received his BFA in studio art with a focus in Photography as well as a Minor in Anthropology from Georgia State University in 2016. His work debates the idea of conflation between object and subject with deft investigations of race, gender, sexuality, class, and performance. Alston has been featured online by websites such as VICE’s The Creators Project, ArtsATL, BURNAWAY, and The Southern Photographer. He is one of Atlanta Celebrates Photography 2015‘ Ones to Watch’ Recipient, a 2015 Idea Capital Grant Recipient, and a 2016 Anderson Ranch Scholar. He has exhibited locally in galleries and Museums such as Atlanta Photography Group, Hathaway Contemporary, and The Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia to national levels such as the inaugural Queer exhibition at Yale University’s Green Gallery, Winston-Salem State University’s Diggs Gallery, and Art Basel Miami Projects Gallery.

Ebony Blanding (b. Atlanta, GA. 1985) is a writer and filmmaker living and working in Atlanta, Georgia. Blanding’s work elucidates women and people of color existing in fullness cinematically. As an indie filmmaker, she has engaged in Atlanta Film Society Filmmaker-In-Residence Program and on the board of LadyFest and Eyedrum film committee. Additionally, she is allied with New Mavericks and Film Fatales Atlanta to aid in the bloom of Atlanta’s indie film community. Blanding uses moving pictures and narratives as ascensions to glorify black renaissance and believes the creation of complex and beautifully simplistic characters of color in film are an artistic act of activism.

Jeremi Johnson is a musician and visual artist currently living in Atlanta, GA. In his work, he draws inspiration from surrealism and Afro‐futurism and explores themes of spirituality, mysticism, technology, and nature. His primary medium is electronic music and production. As 10th Letter, he has produced 16 records in the last 4 years, most of them gaining merit from local publications, and in some cases national and international publications. He also creates psychedelic video and digital collages, which are often presented alongside his music.

Meredith Kooi (b. 1985, Chicago, IL) is a visual and performance artist, critic, curator, and educator based in ATL. Using research-based and process-based practices, Meredith engages radio broadcast, performance, drawing, mapping, writing, book-making, zines, video, photography, and installation to illuminate the embodied and multi-layered nature of place. In recent years, Meredith has been working collaboratively, connecting with others in conversations, oftentimes broadcasting those dialogues on air using her platform ENTER THE BUCKY DOME ZONE. She is currently working on a large-scale community-based audio project in her neighborhood (Pittsburgh) with fellow residents.

Nicole Benner is a textile artist and Visiting Lecturer in Textiles at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia. She received an MFA in Textile Arts from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and a BFA in Sculpture from the University of Central Missouri. Nicole’s work examines the numerous layers of the body affected by chronic pain, as it relates to spinal health, through objects that exist on the body or with a close relationship to the human anatomy.Most recently her work has begun to explore performance as a way to narrate her textile sculptures. As part of Fiber Art Now magazine’s annual Excellence in Fibers exhibition, Nicole was awarded the Paul J. Smith Award for Excellence in Fibers, and her work was featured in the 2016 winter issue. Additionally, her work was published in the Surface Design Association’s 2016 winter journal and will be a part of the Crossing Generations: Past, Present & Future exhibition at the 2017 SDA Conference in Portland, Oregon.

Patrick Di Rito earned a Bachelors of Science in Architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He helped form gray_matter(s), an artist collective and critical publication. He collaborated on site-specific installations for Flux 2011, whitespec, Stubbins Studio Gallery, and the Beaux Arts Ball. In 2011, he worked with Art Along the Atlanta Beltline and collaborated to create a digitally fabricated site-specific installation: Vaulted Vornoi. He is a 2013 Atlanta Printmaking Studio Emerging Artist Resident. His work displayed at Portal Gallery and Blue Mark Studios explored themes of identity, self-destruction, and cognitive dissonance. He is a 2016 Hambidge Fellow. This residency was critical in shaping his Queer Color Series. It was here he first explored using pattern in the created worlds. He also explored shooting outside as a part of the color series, both of these helped shape the atmosphere of the body of work. He has shown excerpts of this series at the Hambidge Art Auction, Mammal Gallery, and Murmur Gallery. Excerpts have been published in Number: Ninety and Wussy Vol 2.

Vanessa Brook Williams is an Atlanta-based artist whose delicate work ranges from small sculptures to room sized installations. She grew up in Decatur, GA in front of her father’s lens and in the dust of her mother’s ceramic studio. This happy childhood laid the groundwork for her creative pursuits as an adult. Over the years she has focused on the technical and conceptual development of her work through research in her studio with the support of community and education. She received her BFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2007 and completed a Post Baccalaureate at Burren College of Art in 2010. In 2013-2014 she was a recipient of Mint Gallery’s emerging artist fellowship, Leap Year, has been a fellow of the Hambidge Center since 2014, and was a finalist for the Forward Arts Foundation’s Emerging Artist Award in 2015-16 and 2017-18.

Featured image created by Emily Linstrum, courtesy of Hughley Fellowship Curator, Iman Person.