The Studios at MASS MoCA is pleased to announce the awardees for 2023 Winter/Spring residency fellowships. Each of these artists will receive a fully funded residency at the Studios, thanks to our many generous partners and funders.
Learn more about how you can support an artist-in-residence at the Studios at MASS MoCA or establish a fellowship in your name.
The Studios at MASS MoCA’s current open call for applications will run until January 8th for residencies during July 2023 - January 2024. Learn more about the Studios’ fellowships and financial aid.
Andrés Argüelles Vigo
Lima, Peru
Andrés is a visual artist who constantly works on the manipulation of iconographies and discourses of art history, through painting and text. He studied at the National School of Fine Arts of Peru in the specialty of painting and graduated in 2017, obtaining the gold medal of his class.
“I experiment and play with the contrasts of historical and local (personal) iconographies. A relationship inspired by my fascination with the great pieces of universal art history (which I have only seen in photos) and my dissatisfaction (or disappointment) when I understand that it is only western art history. The history of art in my country, Peru, is not part of the history of universal art; it is a small history, annexed to the world.
At this moment, I am exploring the possibilities of fiction within the concept of the "Multiverse" in the process of colonization in Peru… a project I call "THE INCAVERSE"; a project of history, fiction and humor that takes up the theme of the Spanish colonialist process in America with a fictional twist, in which certain events in that historical record never happened.
Inspired by the rise of the "Multiverse" concept due to superhero movies, this project takes the "multiversal" concept of parallel worlds to raise questions such as, What would happen if the Spanish had not been able to conquer the Inca empire? And even more, What would have happened if the Incas had conquered important areas of Europe? What would happen if Peru won a World Cup? How would the Inca influence the West? etc.... These are the questions I would like to explore and materialize in this residency.
The Incaverse, besides being a set of playful exercises that explore the subjectivity of history, also seeks to propose reflections on the emotions that result after the traumas of history that have not been retributed. And by proposing an interpretation through humor, fiction and parody, I intend to present a new Latin American narrative of resistance to the historical traumas of colonialism.”
Clare Hu
Brooklyn, New york
Clare Hu is an artist and weaver currently based in Brooklyn, NY. She completed her BFA with a focus in Fiber and Material Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC).
Haptic skips of woven textiles gone awry, the distortion of image dictated by the hand, and games of hide and seek, inform the use of weaving, mended imagery and installation, to examine false histories and notions of the South. By utilizing slow craft, Clare Hu draws from her own experience living in the Southern United States and her research documenting and archiving how Southern narratives are made and maintained throughout the history of Georgia. By exploring how Southern myths are acted and re-enacted in the stories and objects surrounding them, Hu iteratively pieces, mends and patches as a way to respond and dissect the physical and personal distances between cultural spaces - both set a far and rewritten one on top of the other.
A tarp becomes a boundary, dividing the complete with the unfinished - a blinder, hiding spaces that become momentary place holders. Images taken from Hu’s family photos are printed onto warp to then be distorted by the tension of the hand. Making use of woven offcuts, Southern iconography and collage, prospective patches are both used and exhibited as objects in action. Hu magnifies the blurry edges of vision, piecing together moments of her personal narrative to subvert larger myths of the South. Creating patches for unmaterialized textiles, becomes a guarded optimistic practice used to conserve personal places in memory and allow space to consider something new.
Hu has shown in various group shows including Considering Mass and Density at the Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn, NY and CONTINUUM at the Textile Center in Minneapolis, MN, as well as a solo show, Blow/Bellow, at Dream Clinic Project Space in Columbus, OH in 2021. She is a past Hambidge Center fellow and resident at the Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn. In 2022, Hu took part in Alfred University’s inaugural Summer Residency Program and was a Visiting Artist at the Gibbes Museum in Charleston, SC.
Fabiana Comas
Mexico City, Mexico
Through drawings and strokes, Fabiana Comas (Caracas, Venezuela) examines the essentials of objects, nature, and the human body. Her marks are gestures that respond to the physical impulse to draw, turn over, and evoke what is recycled in her memory to represent or transform experiences. The artist experiments with the shape of the human body to explore femininity, queerness, and the power structures that act on bodies. Likewise, she is interested in the contemplation of lines, studies on nature, and the abstractions of popular culture.
The artist has nine years of experience in graphic production and reproduction, which has allowed her to use photography and engraving as study tools for drawing. Between 2019 and 2022, she was in the Yirrkala community in East Arnhem Land (Australia), where she worked for the Buku Larrnggay Mulka Art Center. There, from the immersive experience and the practice of Deep Listening (process of listening to learn), she was able to observe, work and collaborate with the community of indigenous artists of Yirrkala; thus becoming involved with their different daily and professional activities, such as the mixing of pigments and the production of the graphic arts archive. This experience with the Yirrkala community left a relevant mark on her exploration as an artist. In addition, Fabiana has studied Visual Arts and graduated from the National Experimental University of Arts (Caracas, Venezuela). Her work has been exhibited in Venezuela, Mexico, Australia, and Japan. She currently continues to develop her art practice in Mexico City.
James Kaun Balo
Miami, Florida
James Balo is a Haitian-Jamaican multidisciplinary-artist based in Baltimore, Maryland, but originally from Carol City, FL, raised by the vast Caribbean communities in greater Miami.
Balo, who is a 2018 United States Presidential Scholar in The Arts and National YoungArts Foundation Finalist in Visual Arts will receive his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art.
James’ work has been experienced throughout and outside of the country, including Miami, Fl, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Virginia, Baltimore, Maryland, Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Georgia, and Haiti.
Balo, who has performed and exhibited at John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Miami, Florida’s Adrienne Arsht Center, Sullivan Galleries, and the National YoungArts Foundation Gallery, considers himself to be a Griot or a Banton-- a rakontè istwa or an mc who keeps up the tradition of passing down history. He is in awe of the origin of black love stories.
Balo is creating interdisciplinary collages that take the form of psalm, prose, installation, photo, film, textile, fashion, and performance. His work dances and evolves through medium and presentation. James is archiving an encyclopedia of his family’s history, culture, and tradition.
Kamari Carter
Providence, Rhode Island
Kamari Carter is a sound designer, and installation artist primarily working with sound and found objects. Carter's practice circumvents materiality and familiarity through a variety of recording and amplification techniques to investigate notions such as space, systems of identity, oppression, control, and surveillance. Driven by the probative nature of perception and the concept of conversation and social science, he seeks to expand narrative structures through sonic stillness. Carter’s work has been exhibited at such venues as Automata Arts, MoMA, Mana Contemporary, RISD Museum, Microscope Gallery, Lenfest Center for the Arts, WaveHill and has been featured in a range of major publications including ArtNet, Precog Magazine, LevelGround and WhiteWall. Carter holds a BFA in Music Technology from California Institute of the Arts and an MFA in Sound Art from Columbia University.
”I enjoy erecting work(s) with an opaque approach to overt issues, with the goal to uproot conversations on topics that are sometimes difficult to discuss. Subjects such as perception, surveillance, structure, participation, parallelisms and memory are all common motifs in my body of work. There’s a phenomenology in both the audible and oral histories of these themes that I’m always encapsulated by. Often my work interrogates and investigates who is viewing, why they are viewing, and what exactly they are viewing. The work itself tends to take up many forms, be it sculpture, sound, mixed-media, or moving image with an aim to spark dialogue in critical thought; and perhaps, tell a familiar story with a medium much less familiar.”
Keith Wilson
Chicago, Illinois
Keith S. Wilson is a game designer, an Affrilachian Poet, and a Cave Canem fellow. He is a recipient of an NEA Fellowship, an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant, and an Illinois Arts Council Agency Award, and has received both a Kenyon Review Fellowship and a Stegner Fellowship. Additionally, he has received fellowships or grants from Bread Loaf, Tin House, the MacDowell Colony, Vermont Studio Center, UCross, the Millay Colony, and James Merrill House, among others. Keith was a Gregory Djanikian Scholar, and his poetry has won the Rumi Prize and been anthologized in Best New Poets and Best of the Net. His book, Fieldnotes on Ordinary Love (Copper Canyon), was recognized by the New York Times as a best new book of poetry.
Keith’s nonfiction has won an Indiana Review Nonfiction Prize and the Redivider Blurred Line Prize, and has been anthologized in the award-winning collection Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy. His poetry and prose have appeared in Elle, Poetry, The Kenyon Review, and Crab Orchard Review, among others.
Keith’s work in game design includes “Once Upon a Tale,” a storytelling card game designed for Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago in collaboration with The Field Museum of Chicago, and alternate reality games (ARGs) for the University of Chicago. He has worked with or taught new media with Kenyon College, the Field Museum, the Adler Planetarium, and the University of Chicago.
Mikayla Patton
Roswell, New Mexico
Mikayla Patton (she/her) is a visual artist born and raised on the Pine Ridge Reservation of so-called South Dakota. Patton is a dual citizen of the United States and an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota Nation. In 2019, Patton obtained a Bachelors of Fine Arts with a focus in Printmaking from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Patton is represented by the Chiaroscuro Contemporary Gallery in Santa Fe. She has exhibited at the Texas Tech School of Art (Lubbock); All My Relations Gallery (Minneapolis); and the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans. Her work is included in private and public collections including the Denver Art Museum, Tia Collection, and Atka Lakota Museum. As of 2022, Patton has received the Artist in Business Leadership from First Peoples Fund; and LIFT: Early Career Support for Native Artists from Native Arts and Culture Foundation.
“Currently papermaking is a prominent part of my practice as I am curious about the texture of the paper's surface and what it might provide in terms of its physicality as well as its symbolism. There are traces of its history, but mostly it has been washed out. I pulp the paper until it no longer resembles a document. I rarely make marks on the paper, but sometimes erase residue from burning or other treatments. The clean surface provides me with a sense of peace, a place to hide, a safe place for me. There is a sense of self embodiment in much of my works. When I use the paper to make other forms, such as boxes, they feel as though they were made from a handmade membrane. This version of skin is made from the seemingly endless stream of paper products flooding the landscape.”
Nia Witherspoon
Brooklyn, New york
Nia O. Witherspoon (Smith BA/Stanford PhD) is a Black queer multidisciplinary artist + healing justice practitioner investigating the metaphysics of black liberation, desire, and diaspora, as they track across the space-time continuum. Combining Black feminism, indigenous epistemologies, eco-feminism, and auto-critography with mediums in writing, performance, sound, and installation, Witherspoon creates portals for communion, witnessing, and healing. Current and recent works include: Priestess of Twerk: A Black Femme Temple to Pleasure (HERE Art Center/Musical Theatre Factory, 2024), Chronicle X: The Dark Girl Chronicles (The Shed, 2021), and MESSIAH (La Mama, 2019). She is a NEFA/NTP recipient, a Creative Capital Awardee, an NPN and APAP awardee, a Jerome New Artist Fellow, a current artist in residence at HERE Art Center and Musical Theatre Factory, and former resident at BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange and New York Theatre Workshop. Her work has been or will be featured by The Shed, BRIC, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Joe’s Pub, HERE, JACK, La Mama ETC, Playwright’s Realm, Links Hall, National Black Theatre, Brava Theatre, BAAD, Movement Research, BAX, Dixon Place, Painted Bride, 651 Arts, and elsewhere. Her writing is published in the Journal of Popular Culture; Imagined Theatres; Women and Collective Creation; and IMANIMAN: Poets Writing in the Anzaldúan Borderlands. Follow her @niasoli on Instagram to stay up to date on all the happenings!
”I am a concept-driven artist invested in creating spaces where Black/Queer/Femme folks, and, more largely BIPOC are placed in the expansive realm of the sacred. This means that while contemporary tragedy and inter-generational trauma often trigger a project’s inception, ultimately, I aim for my works to place my communities in a context that far exceeds the 500-years of colonial time, and places us in close communion with expanse, imagination, futurity--distant galaxies, and the deep sea. Freedom is not something I have achieved yet, but it is something I feel pulled uncontrollably toward. I am working to cultivate freedom in myself, in my works, and in my collaborators, by any means necessary. I am also learning that freedom is very much about surrendering to what Audre Lorde in “Uses of the Erotic” calls “feeling,” so I try to create spaces (from plays to rituals to rehearsal rooms) where vulnerability is the most valuable currency, continuing and building on the legacy of my Black feminist elders.”
Sonja John
Bronx, New York
Sonja John is a queer, first generation, Bronx-based artist, educator, and curator. She received her Bachelors of Fine Arts from Rhode Island School of Design in 2017. Her contributions to museum education have been featured at the RISD Museum, The New Yorker, and Hyperallergic. She is curator-in-residence for The Yard, Greenpoint. Her poetry has been featured at Jazz At Lincoln Center and The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and her work has been featured on I Like Your Work Podcast, n+1 magazine and Seeing Color Podcast with Zhiwan Cheung.
”Gardens are simultaneously natural and unnatural constructed spaces. Their aesthetics are informed by taxonomy and hegemony, systems of colonial oppression. Race and gender are also constructed spaces. Entire territories are cultivated, and queer bodies of color are excised. If migrants are forced to relocate due to war, racism, or state-sanctioned homophobia, are they considered invasive species in new homes, or do they gain endemic status? The Middle Passage—a forcible uprooting—brought enslaved Africans to the Caribbean. When these diasporic organisms propagated in their new territories, they bridged the flora and fauna of multiple continents. I explore this cultural, botanical, and material hybridity through paintings, textiles, printmaking, and site-responsive installations that reference plant forms across equatorial zones. These plant motifs investigate nostalgic fictions of the Caribbean built from history, memory, and family lore. Using collage, abstraction, stencils, and natural dyes, I both preserve and transform references to my parents’ birth countries (Trinidad, Jamaica, the Philippines) in order to visually undo the simultaneous invisibility and exotification of tropical bodies. Drawing from decorative and scientific visual languages, my work explores landscape, fantasy, queerness, migration, endemism vs. invasiveness, and the relationship between body and environment.”
Chicago, Illinois
Thương Hoài Trần is an interdisciplinary artist who was born in Tây Ninh, Vietnam, and raised in Kansas. Being a Vietnamese immigrant, this part of their identity informs and influences a large part of their artwork. Art has become a method of self-discovery, learning, and healing. Most of their artwork features a level of distortion or fragmentation. In their recent works, they have been examining the process of weaving, disassembling clothes made in Vietnam, and recreating family photographs to learn more about their origin. This process becomes an approach of connecting to their heritage, paying homage, and filling in the gaps created through various barriers such as language, displacement, generational disconnect, and cultural complexities.
Tran received their MFA in Printmedia at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA in Painting and Printmedia at Emporia State University. Their work has been exhibited in The Research House for Asian Art, Janet Turner Print Museum, Megalo Print Studio, The Fiber Artists of San Antonio, and Artists Image Resource. Most recently, their work was published in The Mid America Print Council Journal, Volume 34/35: “Repair.”
Vessna Scheff
Providence, Rhode Island
Vessna Scheff is a painter and performance artist based in Providence, RI.
“My current interdisciplinary practice in painting and performance focuses on how Black diasporic identities hold, create, and teach subsistence narratives through embodied sounds and movements. With this focus, I am asking the questions: How are unspoken histories conveyed through movement, silence, the glance of an eye, fat crackling in cast iron, pushing play on a walkman, and seeds thrown in the garden? How can my practice map these diasporic ways of knowing and amplify ongoing struggles for Black womxn living? My research expands on how diasporic identities ‘map’ ways of knowing and create/ share resistance strategies. Disparate ways of knowing present in my research include embodied knowledge, negotiations of code switching, slowing pace to reclaim power, and sampling/ looping in R&B music performed by Black womxn. Grounded in watercolors, my work reclaims an often described as “difficult”/ “sketch” medium for its uncontrollable qualities, and conceptualizes the freedom of watercolors as an expression of Black liberation- always being, responding, and expressing freedom despite the confines of oppression. These active works dance with time and fall to gravity- they blend, bleed, and bloom; they stretch, they resist, they flood, they drip- potent in texture, heavy in meaning, and rich in nuance.”
Oregon Visual Arts Fellows
Supported by The Ford Family Foundation, this fellowship awarded two visual artists from the state of Oregon:
Christina Martin
Portland, Oregon
I am a Mexican-American, queer, experimental printmaker. Originally from Texas, I moved to Portland, OR where I received an MFA in Print Media from the Pacific Northwest College of Art. I am a printmaker who enjoys challenging traditional printmaking as well as traditional ideas. My material exploration transforms the print past paper, introducing and interlacing new forms of media with various printmaking techniques. This includes sculptural works like molds and casts, liquid latex, textiles, ceramics, and even the body. I am an explorer of material and identity.
Within my artistic practice, I often engage in the conversation of identity and expression. My work is rooted within my own intersectional identity and alternative embodied experience. This often includes speaking about my own feminine, queer, kinky, and cultural expressions. Overall, my work evokes space for self-exploration, self-love, and pleasure.
I am an activist and participant in my community, working and making art toward forging connections and speaking on
Lynn Yarne
Portland, Oregon
Lynn Yarne is an artist and educator from Portland, Oregon. She works within animation and collage to address collective memory, generational narratives, histories and space. A fourth generation Chinese and Japanese American, her current work explores themes of displacement and loss, resilience and community, particularly within Old Town Portland.
She is curious about participatory works, magic, and rejuvenation.
As a teacher in a public high school she facilitates a teen digital media think tank and skill building program with an emphasis on equipping young people with media skills to create positive change and participate in visual culture. Yarne and her students began building a screen printing studio in a classroom closet in 2015; it is now a printmaking studio that trains over 120 youth printers each year.