AUCTION ON THE ALLEY
Below is biographical information about each artist who is featured in the auction.
Alice Whealin
Alice Whealin is an Arlington, Virginia-based artist who works primarily in ink and watercolor. Whealin has exhibited her artwork extensively in the District of Columbia metropolitan area. She has exhibited at The Painting Center in New York and at the Museo Della Carta in Fabriano, Italy. She has artworks in the permanent collection of the Museo Della Carta, Fabriano, Italy and in private collections. Whealin spent six years in a studio residency at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Arlington, Virginia. She has had numerous solo exhibitions, including at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Arlington,VA, the McLean Project for the Arts, George Mason University and the Mezz Gallery@Artisphere. Whealin works in Arlington, Virginia. Her most recent exhibition, Ebullience, was at the Fred Schnider Gallery (2024.)
Andrea Limauro
ANDREA LIMAURO (b. Rome, Italy – lives in Silver Spring, MD) is a visual artist and city planner whose work explores issues of migration and migrant identity, nationalistic narratives, gun violence, climate change and other political and social issues. Limauro’s work has been exhibited widely in the Washington, DC region including at the Art Museum of the Americas, the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, Arts & Artists at Hillyer, as well as at the Painting Center in New York City, New York and the US Ambassador’s Residence in Vienna, Austria. His paintings have been included in New American Paintings N.148 and Studio Visit Magazine Vol. 50 and have been reviewed by the Washington Post and the Washington City Paper on several occasions. Limauro was a Finalist for the Albero Andronico Art Award in Rome, Italy (2019) and a Semi-Finalist for the Bethesda Painting Awards in Maryland (2020 & 2022). His public speaking engagement include the Hirshhorn Museum and American University Museum/Katzen Arts Center. Limauro served as a Board Member of the Washington Project for the Arts for seven years, holds a BA in Politics and Sociology from Essex University, UK, a Graduate Diploma in International Development from the University of Padua, Italy and a Masters Degree in Urban Planning and Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Anna U Davis
Anna U Davis (b. Lund, Sweden) is known for her bold, colorful mixed-media paintings, where she explores social inequalities. Davis began expanding her artistic practice and developing her signature “Frocasian” characters after moving to Washington, D.C. in the 1990s. Frocasians appear in her art as abstracted grey-toned figures, inspired by her interracial marriage and her strongly held belief in social justice. Davis is a two-time recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and has received multiple fellowships from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. In 2020, Davis was featured on the cover of the scholarly journal Feminist Studies. Recent solo shows include the Swedish American Museum (Chicago), Galerie Myrtis (Baltimore), the Embassy of Sweden (Washington, D.C.), and Davis Gallery (Copenhagen). Her work has been shown in additional solo and group exhibitions in the United States, Europe, Cuba (13th Havana Biennial) and Qatar and is held in public and private collections.
Anne Bouie
Anne Bouie is a mixed media artist and historian whose work addresses the universality of spiritual and social traditions that serve to mold, define and explain their relationship to the Earth and one another. She explores how art is not set apart, how it is deployed, experienced and encountered depending upon the viewer. Material culture creates, reflects, and maintains an alternate frame of reference meanings, and aesthetics. She asserts that the continuity of cultures and beliefs draw from a universal well that affirms the transcendence of spirit across peoples, cultures, time, and space, along with the ability and willingness of the discerning spirit to look where others may not, or will not. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, her perspectives and spirituality are rooted in the spiritual teachings of the AME church, Jackson County, Florida and study and participation in alternative spiritual paths. She holds a PhD. In Educational Policy and administration, an MA in secondary education, and an MA in History, from Stanford University. She resides and works in the District of Columbia.Bria Edwards
Bria Edwards–a Washington, D.C. native and B.F.A. Graphic Design graduate of St. John’s University–spent over a decade scouting and scaling the visual arts circuit before finally finding her niche. Until then, she had been sure of only a few things–of these things. She needed texture. Her hands needed to bend and shape and mold divergent media, never tethered to just a computer keyboard or canvas. Edwards also needed her palette-knife and vibrant colors to manifest her 2D portraits–immersive and palpable opuses that both tangible and visually debunk the monolithic myths about black people. Edwards finally found where her art “lived”, where she illuminated most brilliantly. She was selected for the juried invitational, “Inside Outside, Upside Down”, a special, 100th anniversary celebration for the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. Since then, she has been in several exhibitions and continues to grow and expand her art practice.
Charles Philippe Jean-Pierre
Charles Philippe Jean-Pierre is a Haitian American artist groomed on Chicago’s south side. He is currently an adjunct professor at American University in Fine Arts. As U.S. State Department Art in Embassies Artist, his work is now in the permanent collection of the U.S. Embassy in Cotonou, Benin West Africa. He was a President Obama White House invitee for the role of art education in promoting national youth justice. Jean Pierre has participated in two Asian Pacific American Smithsonian exhibitions and has exhibited with the International Monetary Fund headquarters in Washington DC. His work has been highlighted by numerous media outlets including; The Washington Post, Ebony Magazine, Black Enterprise, NHK Japan, The Village Voice, BET, NBC, Netflix and FOX.
Cianne Fragione
Throughout her career, Cianne Fragione has followed a deep, irresistible instinct that impels her to combine materials and content in unexpected ways, achieving a full and sustained realization in art that embodies the most intimate kinds of encounters between nature and culture. Cianne was an Artist-in-Residence at DVI State Prison in Tracy, CA, from 1980-1983, with a project co-funded by the California Arts Council, Sacramento, and Williams James Association, Santa Cruz, CA. In 2005 she was a fellow through Spoleto Study Abroad in Spoleto, Italy; an Artist-in-Residence in Soaring Gardens, Laceyville, PA (a project of the Ora Lerman Trust, New York, NY), in 2010 and in 2012; and a two-month artist residency at Lo Studio dei Nipoti in Monasterace, Italy, a small Calabrian coastal town. Her art has appeared in numerous solo and group exhibitions (including traveling exhibitions) throughout the United States in California; New York; Chicago, IL; Cincinnati, OH; Baltimore, MD; Washington DC; Boston; Louisville, KY; and Virginia, among others; and internationally in galleries and museum in Italy, as well as American embassies in Sofia, Bulgaria; and Vilnius, Lithuania; as part of the State Department’s Art in Embassies program.
Claudia “Aziza” Gibson Hunter
Ms. Gibson-Hunter is an abstract mixed media artist. She blends painting, printmaking, collage, papermaking, and assemblage to investigate themes of agency, memory, and spirituality. Acrylic paint and colored pencil are combined with commercial and artist-made papers. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Aziza graduated from Temple University (BS) and Howard University (MFA). Ms. Gibson-Hunter has been awarded the Individual Artist Fellowship Program Grant, from the DC Commission of the Arts and Humanities, numerous times. Her work can be found in the collections of the Washington DC Art Bank and the US Embassy in Liberia. She has also held positions at Parsons School of Art, Howard University, and Bowie State University. Ms. Gibson-Hunter is a member of the Black female collectives Dandelion Black, THOUGHT, and WOAUA. She is a co-founding member of Black Artists of DC and operates a studio located within the STABLE art complex in Washington, DC.
Dan Ortiz Leizman
Dan Ortiz Leizman is an artist, writer, and educator currently based in the DMV area. They are completing an MFA degree in the University of Maryland’s Department of Art and received their Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy and Studio Art from Goucher College. Recent awards include the 2023 Clarvit Endowed Faculty and Graduate Student Research Fund and the 2023 ArtsAMP Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Research Grant.
David Allen Harris
DAVID ALLEN HARRIS is a Washington, DC-based visual artist and photographer, originally from the San Francisco Bay Area. A descendant of Underground Railroad conductor Frank Wanzer, he grew up immersed in both art and science. After earning a Computer Science degree, Harris discovered creative expression through photography. Encouraged by artist Michael Platt, he began exhibiting in 2007 at DC Artomatic, where the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities acquired three of his works. He now exhibits work featuring his partner, Lyric Prince Harris, as they collaboratively expand the boundaries of storytelling and the mediums of photography and installation art.
Dawn Whitmore
Dawn Whitmore is a Washington, DC-based interdisciplinary artist whose work explores the dynamics between cultural mythology and identity. Using soundscapes, photography, video, sculpture, painting, and drawing, she creates immersive spaces that invite the participant to enter an altered emotional landscape. Dawn received a BFA from the Corcoran School of Art in 2005. Her work has been shown nationally at the Mesa Museum of Contemporary Art (AZ), Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington (VA), Hemphill Fine Arts (DC), Area 405 (MD), and the Spring Gallery (NY). Her work has been published in The Guardian, The Washington Post, and The Virginia Quarterly Review. She is a recipient of multiple artist fellowship grants from the DC Commission on the Arts and the CAH-NEA CARES Act Grant.
Elaine M. Erne
Elaine M. Erne, co-founder and co-director of Star Wheel Printers, received her BFA from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, and her MFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. Erne’s drawings and prints have been featured in numerous invitational and juried national exhibitions. She has had multiple solo exhibitions: Small Drawings and Prints, The Study, Philadelphia, PA; Lives and Traumas of Stuffed Animals, Artworks Center for Contemporary Art, Loveland, CO; Lanie Doll and Friends, House Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; Mr. Bunny Misses His Friends, Nexus, Foundation for Today’s Arts, Philadelphia PA; Elaine M. Erne: Drawings and Prints, Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ; Mr. Bunny and Friends, Nexus, Foundation for Today’s Arts, Philadelphia PA; The Lives and Traumas of Stuffed Animals, Bahdeebahdu Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; a Wind Challenge Exhibition, Fleisher Art Memorial, Philadelphia, PA; and a Community Gallery Solo Exhibition, Abington Art Center, Abington, PA.
Ellen Hanauer
Ellen Hanauer is an international sculptor and installation artist who has spent much of her career depicting the emotive states of the world. She uses mixed media to share her personal history through object-based narratives. Hanauer has dealt with feminist, reproductive, biological, and psychological issues, often portraying the subject matter from the inside out. The inspiration for each piece is derived from its concept, which inspires her to continue evolving techniques and using materials in original ways. Throughout her career, she has continued to integrate social activism into her work. Hanauer is a self-taught artist who began her career studying the human body in the cadaver labs at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. She has exhibited nationally and internationally in museums, universities and galleries, including solo exhibitions here and abroad. Her commissions are installed throughout the country and her work is in the collections of museums, corporations, townships, and private collectors
Elaine Qiu
Elaine Qiu is a multidisciplinary artist who works in painting, printmaking, installation, and video. Hovering between abstraction and representation, her work explores the liminal spaces between reality and fiction, past and present, and physical and psychological, tells stories about memory, time, and change. In her work, Qiu offers a meditation between life’s seen and unseen, draws attention to the tension and flow between the personal and the public. Qiu holds her MFA from University of Maryland, and a BFA from George Mason University. Qiu had solo, two person and group shows at galleries including Great Reston Art Center, Torpedo Factory Art Center, Riverview Artspace and Brentwood Arts Exchange. Her work is held in public and private collections across the United States.
Elizabeth Vorlicek
Liz is an artist and sculptor living in Alexandria, Virginia. Liz shows her work in the D.C. area and around the United States. She is a member of the Washington Sculptor’s Group and holds a MFA and a BFA degree from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. Liz is a high school art teacher at Episcopal High School and is the Gallery Director at the Angie Newman Johnson Gallery at EHS’s Ainslie Arts Center. Liz has worked in collage since her years as an under-graduate and finds inspiration for her sculptural work and installations through the medium.
Ellyn Weiss
Ellyn Weiss is a Washington DC-based visual artist and independent curator, with studios in Mt. Rainier, MD and Truro, MA. She has shown in over 35 solo and collaborative exhibitions and numerous group shows. She works in two and three dimensions. Ellyn is committed to engagement with the most pressing issues that face us. Much of her work is concerned with the global climate crisis. She has shown installations on, e.g. the melting of the polar ice caps (American Association for the Advancement of Science); the heat-related movement of tropical diseases northward toward unexposed populations (Otis Street Arts Project.); and the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef. Ellyn co-founded an artists’ collective formed in 2017 called ArtWatchDC to use visual communication to resist attacks on fundamental democratic ideals and human decency. As part of that mission, she conceived the One House Project, a collaboration of 300 artists building a house structure paneled with artwork celebrating the journeys of each of their ancestors to a new world.
Gary Honig
Born in Washington D.C. in 1954, the year Elvis Presley recorded his first record, Honig is a child of rock and roll. His work situates in the nexus of personality and sublimation founding an internal reference whereby the manifestation of material intersects the intention. Here within, he crosses into providence. Time works the threshold of deviation from the simple to the complex. His pictures extend to those dimensions whereby he follows an instinctive path forward by integrating the present, past and future. His work is influenced by painters like Lee Krasner, Larry Poons and Joan Mitchell. To a great degree, his paintings reflect his adventures, which some might consider unconventional.
Genie Ghim
Genie is an interdisciplinary artist and first-generation American, born in Seoul, Korea. Her transnational background – having lived as an expatriate in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East – deeply informs her practice, which explores themes of cultural identity, history, and popular culture. She works across various media, including screen prints, sculpture, painting, natural pigments, and laser-cut plexiglass, often combining vivid color, hard-edged abstraction, and provocative text. Genie holds a Master of Fine Art (MFA) in Studio Art from American University, she attended the Corcoran School of Art and the Fashion Institute of Technology. Her work has been shown internationally in South Korea, Spain, Qatar, and the United States, including museums and galleries throughout the D.C., Maryland, and Virginia region. In November 2024, she completed a residency at JOYA: arte + ecología in Almería, Spain. Genie currently lives and works between Washington, D.C. and Madrid, Spain.
Gerardo Bravo
Born in Mexico City in 1964, Bravo lives and works between the United States and Mexico City. He studied at the Academia Nacional de Artes de San Carlos in Mexico City from 1994 to 1999. His work has been exhibited in institutions such as the Anahuacalli Museum in Mexico City, the Mexican Cultural Institutes in Ottawa, San Francisco and Miami, and in the VIII Rufino Tamayo Biennial at the Rufino Tamayo Museum of Contemporary Art, Mexico City, and It is part of numerous public and private collections such as the World Bank in Washington D.C., the Mexican Embassy in Berlin, the Museum of Oaxacan Painters in the city of Oaxaca, the Iberoamerican University in Mexico City and the International Bank of Miami Florida. to name a few.
Hyunsuk Erickson
Hyunsuk Erickson is a multidisciplinary Korean-born, American artist who cultivates a platform for discussions on culture and consumerism. Her perspectives have been shared through exhibitions, residencies, academic endeavors, and community contributions, culminating in a multi-faceted artistic practice. Erickson’s academic journey includes a significant period in the MFA Program at American University from2020 to 2022, where she explored new techniques, media, and ideas, aligning her artistic practice with a diverse arts community. Participating in local shows and AU Museum thesis project exhibitions marked pivotal moments in her academic pursuit. Her recent residencies at the Banff Centre and the Vermont Studio Center in 2023 fostered valuable connections and artistic growth through collaboration with fellow residents. She also benefited from a fully funded residency at Anderson Ranch in 2022, where she received invaluable feedback from renowned artists and critics, profoundly sharpening her artistic vision.
Jeffrey Berg
Jeffrey Berg has drawn all his life: he is self-taught. Formerly a counselor in a community mental health clinic, he currently works full-time in his art studio in the 52 “O” Street Studios in Washington DC. Berg’s artwork has been exhibited in numerous solo and juried group shows in the DC area (including two regional museum shows) and several open studio events, and has been reviewed by The Washington Post and The Hill Rag. Berg’s work is in private collections as well as in the permanent collections of commercial and public venues. He has thrice been awarded an Arts and Humanities Fellowship by the DC Commission of the Arts and Humanities. His work has been published in five international collections and on the cover of a regional publication. He has participated in two artist residences.
Joan Belmar
Joan Belmar was born in Santiago, Chile, in 1970. He left Chile for Spain at the age of 24. He began painting professionally in Spain, using the Catalan name Joan for his first name John. He came to Washington, DC, four years later in 1999, was granted permanent residency in the US based on extraordinary artistic merit in 2003, and became a citizen in 2010. Joan Belmar is well known for his unique technique of 3-D painting, in which he combines his former painting and collage techniques with both painted and untreated Mylar/paper strips in circles and curvilinear shapes. This technique produces variations in transparency, as light and the viewer move in relation to the work. He was a Mayor’s Art Award Finalist in 2007 as an outstanding emerging artist in Washington, DC. The DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities recognized him with an Artist Fellowship Program grant in 2009, and in 2011 he was awarded an Individual Artist Grant by the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County, MD. He is a two-time recipient of the Maryland Arts Council Individual Artist Grant in Visual Arts: Painting, in 2010 and 2013. Belmar’s work is part of many private and public collections, including the University of Maine Museum of Art’s Permanent Collection. In 2016 he won first place, from among 2240 received artworks, for best Original Work in the prestigious Osten Biennial of Drawing in Macedonia.
Joan Cox
Joan Cox (born 1969) is a feminist, lesbian figurative painter known for her evocative portrayals of intimate relationships between women. Growing up in Baltimore, Maryland, her formative years were marked by a period when LGBTQ+ identities were marginalized and silenced. She fearlessly depicts herself, her wife, and their child — inviting viewers into their lives and personal narratives. By sharing their stories, Joan aims to humanize and demystify lesbian relationships, fostering understanding, empathy, and acceptance. Joan holds an MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art & Design’s low-residency program at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. In 2023, she co-curated a queer-themed exhibition In This Body of Mine along with Liz Faust at MassArt’s SoWa Gallery in Boston. She will be exhibiting in Mexico City during Art Week in February 2025 with the Bureau of Queer Art. For more information on her work and exhibition schedule, follow her Instagram @joancoxartist and visit her website at joancoxart.com.
Joyce Wellman
Joyce Wellman began her artistic journey in the early seventies in various printmaking studios in New York City. There, Wellman was mentored by a host of artists. By 1981, she had relocated to Washington, DC. Throughout her career, Wellman’s concern has been discovering a means by which to create an art vocabulary and grammar that included vibrant colors, cryptic marks, shapes, and symbols that reference mathematics, anthropomorphic forms, and even text and personal experiences that reference her upbringing in a household where “the numbers” were played. While Wellman continued to make prints, her focus in the mid-’80s turned to painting, mixed media, and drawing. The use of intuition, textures, vivid colors, mark-making, and a process-oriented approach aided her in digging deeply into her heart to communicate through abstraction. Wellman has been mentored by Valerie Maynard, Robert Blackburn’s Printmaking Workshop in NYC, and Khrishna ReddyW at his Color Print Atleier workshop at New York University.
Julio Valdez
Julio Valdez is a painter, printmaker, teacher and mixed-media installation artist. He was part of the official representation of the Dominican Republic at the 58th Venice Biennale in Italy in 2019. Valdez has presented 30 institutional and gallery solo exhibitions nationally and internationally, and has participated in more than 100 group exhibitions, biennials and related educational programs in the visual arts.
Among his numerous awards, he received the Artist-in-Residence Fellowship at The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York City in 1997-98 and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship for printmaking in 2003. Since 2004 he has been teaching Non-toxic printmaking workshops internationally. Julio Valdez was a featured solo artist at Hillyer in November and December 2022.
Karlisima Rodas-Israel
Karlisima Rodas-Israel, is a Washington D.C.-based artist and muralist known for her bright, bold colors and Latin American influences. Born in San Salvador, El Salvador, she moved to the U.S. at age 14 and has since become a prominent figure in the D.C. art scene. She is known for her murals, paintings, and public art projects, often incorporating themes of culture, history, and the beauty of the natural world. Karlisima has received numerous awards for her artwork and has exhibited her work both locally and internationally, including solo exhibitions in London and Berlin. She continues to create murals and public art projects in the Washington D.C. area, often collaborating with community organizations and local businesses.
Kate Fitzpatrick
Kate Fitzpatrick is an artist and educator based in Alexandria, VA. Fitzpatrick received a BFA in Painting from Clarion University of Pennsylvania (1997), an MA in art education from University of New Mexico, and an MFA in Drawing and Painting from George Mason University (2020). She was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship (2016) where she spent a semester in India. Fitzpatrick is also an art educator who was honored by the Northern Virginia Magazine as a “Northern Virginian of the Year” (2014) for her creation and implementation of an art and yoga program for youth in the Northern Virginia Juvenile Detention center. In addition, Fitzpatrick received the Agnes Meyer Teacher of the Year award by the Washington Post (2013). Fitzpatrick exhibits her work throughout the US and teaches for Arlington Public Schools.
Lisa Brown
Lisa Brown was born and raised between Washington, DC, and Compton, California. She had a film camera in her hand at the age of 7. She was inspired by her grandfather, who was a student at Howard Law, but a street photographer in DC in the late 80’s. She took her first classes in photography at the Washington DC Children’s museum. She attended secondary education at Prince George’s College, where she acquired a degree in visual arts. After college, she dove deep into Africana Studies and was guided by many professors to continue the development of her craft as a photographer and visual artist. Her talent as a photographer has been recognized by the Pittsburgh Art Society, Black is Magazine, and The National Museum of Women’s in the Arts.
Nikki Brugnoli
Nikki Brugnoli is an artist, educator, and curator who received her BFA from Seton Hill University (2004) and her MFA from The Ohio State University (2007). Brugnoli serves on the faculty at Flint Hill School in Oakton, VA. She teaches Studio Art in the Upper School and runs the Art School/College recruiting program. Previously, she served on the faculty at George Mason University and was the Assistant Graduate Programs Coordinator and Graduate Advisor in the School of Art. In addition, she helped coordinate Visual Voices, Visiting Artist Program. Nikki was the Exhibitions Coordinator for the Art Lab at the Lorton Workhouse, Lorton, VA and currently serves on the Hillyer IA&A Advisory Council, Washington D.C. Brugnoli is currently exhibiting at The Athenaeum: Forces Fleeting with Anne C. Smith and VisArt: Suspended Inter-Spaces; group exhibition.
Oluwatoyin Tella
Oluwatoyin Tella is a creator with a unique affinity towards art and math. She received both her Master of Fine Arts and Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Howard University. Tella was born in Oyo, Nigeria to a Jamaican mother and Yoruba father. By pulling from a rural Nigerian childhood and matriarchal Caribbean home in New York, Tella incorporates a multi-layered perspective. Her diasporic lineage gives her a compelling point of view, which she is passionate about conveying. While Yo-Yo Ma is among her list of collectors, Tella has shown at various galleries and museums, most notably New York’s African American Museum. She is currently in residence at Red Dirt Studios in Mount Rainier, Maryland and is a professor at Bowie State University.
Orna Ben-Ami
Orna Ben-Ami is an Israeli artist who joined the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in 1971 and became the first female military correspondent for the Army Radio station. Following her military service, she was a reporter and news editor for the Israeli Broadcasting Authority radio station and enrolled at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where she studied International Relations and History. Currently based in Israel, Ben-Ami transitioned from working with words to working with materials when she began learning gold and silversmith at the Jerusalem Technological Center. Between 1990 and 1992, she studied sculpture at the Corcoran School of Art located in Washington, D.C., and then continued her studies in Art History at Tel Aviv University. Since 1994, Ben-Ami has been engaged in sculpting and uses iron as the main raw material for her artistic expression.
Patricia Daher
Patricia Daher is a New York-based American-Lebanese multidisciplinary artist, poet, and environmental activist. Her work is autobiographical, exploring the intricate relationship between human civilization and the natural world. Through painting, drawing, collage, sculpture, and performance art, Daher channels the wisdom of nature and native cultures to inspire environmental awareness and promote harmony. Capturing the zeitgeist of globalization and the digital age, Daher’s art integrates innovative materials, experimental techniques, and bold color palettes. Repetitive motifs, symbolic language, and abstract compositions form the foundation of her work, addressing urgent ecological concerns. Her artistic explorations expand the boundaries of Conceptual Art, New Surrealism, Visionary Art, and Symbolism. Her interdisciplinary approach is informed by Mathematics, Science, Ancient History, Mythology, and Religion, weaving together themes of society, music, and the environment. This fusion creates a layered, multidimensional narrative that invites viewers to engage with art as a universal language—one that communicates complex ideas with simplicity and depth.
Rachel Cecelski
Rachel L. Cecelski, immersed herself in art since childhood, she earned a BFA in Illustration with a minor in Art History in 2012. Rachel works across various mediums, with texture as a constant in her pieces. Whether using oil, acrylic, watercolor, or mixed medium—blending hand-drawn, digital elements, wire, jewels, and cut paper/fabric—Rachel’s artistic style is defined by its tactile depth and the unique vision texture brings to each piece.
Raimi Gbadamosi
Raimi Gbadamosi is an artist, writer and curator. He received his Doctorate in Fine Art from the Slade School of Fine Art, London. Gbadamosi’s work includes multiples, music, websites, writing and audience participation. The artist encourages debate and dialogue, instead of representing preconceived concerns defined by specific social, cultural and political orientations. Some of his publications include Cemetery, 2015; Representing Enslavement and Abolition on Museums, Routledge 2011; Black British Perspectives, Sable, 2011. His currently department chair and professor of the Art Department at Howard University and was recently featured in a group exhibition at Hillyer titled “Sensorial Africana Superreailties.”
Redeat Wondemu
Redeat Wondemu’s journey began in 2005 in a university darkroom where she shot film for the first time. After a decade hiatus, she re-entered the darkroom and began to refine her printing skills through internships and residencies. Traveling to her home country of Ethiopia has since allowed her to tell long-form, visual stories of women using both digital and film techniques. Redeat is currently a scholar in residence at the Hillwood Museum and a faculty member at Photoworks, where she recently served as an Artist in Residence. She just became a Humanities DC: Community Culture and Heritage grant recipient for her photography series, “The Games We Played”. Redeat’s photography has shown in many solo and group exhibitions across the DMV and she continues to prioritize community engagement alongside. Her work has been featured in the Washington Post, Washington City Paper, and numerous other local and national publications.
Reginald Pointer
Reginald Pointer received his MFA from Florida State University and a BFA from Howard University. He is an educator, ceramic artist, printmaker, illustrator, and wordsmith. He was born in Washington D.C. yet he was raised for the most part in New England. The rural experience of Burlington Massachusetts coupled with the urban reality of the Nation’s capital shaped and formed an artist with multiple layers of creative diversity. This is clearly apparent when viewing his artwork. He is comfortable with a number of materials from paper to clay & everything in-between. Associate Professor Pointer is currently working at Howard University as the program coordinator in Ceramics, but he has also taught at Duke Ellington School of the Arts, The Clay House, Exceptional Children’s Foundation, Grambling State University, and Penland School of Crafts.
Sabiha Iqbal
Sabiha Iqbal earned her Ph. D in economics from the University of Maryland and was a professor of economics for 27 years. Shestudied painting with Mira Hecht at the Corcoran School of Art and Design and Natasha Mokina at the Winter Palace Studio, The Yellow Barn and most recently at The Art League where Susan O’Neill helped her develop new techniques in gesturedrawings. She has shown her work in group and solo shows at the Athenaeum, Women’s National Democratic Club, CorcoranGallery, The Writer’s Center, The Watergate Gallery, GlenviewMansion, Target Gallery, and the Yellow Barn. She is represented by the Studio Gallery. Her first group show, Ekphrasis, at the Writers Center was a memorable turning point for her and opened the world of self-discovery and limitless possibilities using the medium of poetry to express her joys and concerns of the world through moving figures.
Sean Riley
Sean Riley is an artist living and working in Washington, DC. In 1999, Riley received his BFA in painting from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. In 2004, he received an MFA in sculpture from the University of Pennsylvania. His work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions throughout the Northeast including: Danese/Corey in New York City, TSA NY in Brooklyn, NY, Gallery 263 in Cambridge, MA, Lamont Gallery in Exeter, NH, Arthur Ross Gallery in Philadelphia, PA, The Arts Center of the Capital Region in Troy, NY, and several others. He has received grants from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, The Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, and the Berkshire Taconic Foundation. Riley has been an artist in residence at the Joan Mitchell Center, Yaddo, and the Vermont Studio Center.
Sharon Farmer
Sharon Camille Farmer (b. 1951) was the first African American woman to be hired as a White House photographer and first female to be director of the White House Photography Office. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Farmer attended Ohio State University and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in photography. After graduating, Farmer began a career as a freelance photographer. She worked for the Smithsonian Institution, The Washington Post, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She documented news stories, political campaigns, cultural events, conferences, and portraits. Farmer also lectures extensively on photography and served on the faculty at American University, Mount Vernon College, and Indiana University. In 1993, Farmer traveled the world as a White House photographer for President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. Among the many famous images she captured was the handshake between the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat and President and Mrs. Clinton witnessing the launch of the space shuttle Discovery with astronaut John Glenn. In 2004, Farmer was the campaign photographer for Senator John Kerry’s presidential election campaign. Farmer has also presented her work in exhibitions at museums and cultural institutions nationwide, including: Art against AIDS, Gospel in the Projects, Twenty Years on the Mall, Washington, D.C.m Our Views of Struggle, and The Oracle Said Be Still, curated by Renée Stout.
Sharon Fishel
She received a Virginia Commission Artist in Residency Grant through her work at MPA.In 2012, the ArtReach Program was awarded the first Art Education Program Award from the Arts Council of Fairfax County. In 2014, the ArtReach Program received the Fairfax County Public School Blue Ribbon Community Partner Award and in 2016 MPA ArtReach Program was awarded the ArtStars Award from the Dominion Foundation. Previously, she worked as the Principal Instructor for the Art Reach Program at The Whitney Museum of American Art (1978-1983). She holds an M.F.A. from Queens College, CUNY, an M.A. from New York University and a B.F.A. from The Hartford Art School at The University of Hartford. Sharon Fishel has exhibited her work extensively in Washington DC., Maryland, Virginia and in New York City. Her work is included in the Artery Collection as well as various private collections in the Mid-Atlantic region.
Sharon Shapiro
Sharon Shapiro is a Virginia-based artist with a versatile painting practice. Shapiro has shown throughout the United States, including one and two-person exhibitions at SPRING/BREAK Art Show, NYC; the Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington, Arlington, VA; {Poem 88} Gallery, Atlanta, GA; Garvey Simon Projects, NYC; and the Gadsden Museum of Art, Gadsden, AL. Her group exhibitions include the Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC; Maine Center for Contemporary Art, Rockland, ME; the McLean Project for the Arts, McLean, VA; and the Masur Museum of Art, Monroe, LA. She has been in residence at Ucross, Jentel, Ragdale, The Hambidge Center, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her practice has received grant support, including two awards from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and she was the recipient of the Atelier Focus Fellowship at AIR SFI in Georgia. Her work has been featured in New American Paintings, Whitewall, Art Spiel, Studio Visit, The Washington Post, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, and Kolaj Magazine. Shapiro holds an MFA from the Maine College of Art and a BFA from the Atlanta College of Art. She currently shows her work with Garvey|Simon in New York City and San Anselmo, California.
Sookkyuyng Park
Sookkyung Park established an Arts & Crafts studio in 1982 and maintained the studio for 25 years in South Korea. In 2011, she emigrated to the U.S. in her 50’s and received a B.A. in Studio Arts from University of Maryland, College Park in 2016. After graduating, she joined the HMAA GW (Han-Mee Artists Association of the Great Washington DC). She was selected in several regional and international juried exhibitions. Her works have been featured in many publications, including The Washington Post, The Korea Times, East City Art, Bmore Art, MAP, WSG news, AA&CC, Maryland State Arts Council and etc. She was awarded the Best Award twice from the CAGO (Contemporary Art Gallery Online) for 3-D Category Part in 2020 and 2021. Park is currently the Member of Washington Sculptors Group, President of the HMAA GW and TU MFA Candidate in 2023.
Tom Wolff
Tom Wolff studied painting at the now defunct School of Practical Art in Boston, and Arts Students League in New York. He studied photography at George Washington University, Color Theory at Harvard University, Linear Design at MIT, and photography at Photoworks at Glen Echo Park. Wolff has worked as a freelance photographer, adjunct professor at Shepherd University, Shepherdstown, and professor at Photoworks, Glen Echo Park. His work has been published in Washington Post Magazine, Rolling Stone, Esquire, Vogue, Newsweek, House & Garden, Garden Design, Smithsonian, Audubon, New York Times Magazine/Sophisticated Traveler, etc. His work was featured in “Listening to the Prairie,” a traveling exhibition by the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of Natural History, the Municipal Arts Society of New York, Spectrum Gallery, Under the Influence, 2005, The R Street Gallery, PORTRAITS, 2006, Washington, DC, and Organization of American States, 2006, and the Hillyer Contemporary Art Space (IA&A at Hillyer). His works are in the collection of the Baltimore Museum and Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio.
Tracy Meehleib
Tracy Meehleib is a Washington, DC-based photographer whose interest in the medium began in the 70s as a child with a family Polaroid. Since then, she has worked with a range of cameras—from a public school-loaned Yashica TLR in junior high, to a Minolta SLR in high school, then to a Hasselblad, a Leica, and more recently to her iPhone. Her work is influenced by time spent as an image cataloger in the Library of Congress’ Prints & Photographs Division during the 1990s, working with the FSA-OWI and NAACP photo archives and other image collections. The photograph in this show reflects her ongoing interest in, and involvement with, social justice events in DC—and the people and everyday moments that define them.
