Artspace invites emerging and mid-career artists from all fields to apply for our one year Artist-in-Residence program. During this time, Artists-in-Residence will have round the clock access to one of two spaces: a private 250 sq. ft. first floor studio located in the back of Artspace.
Africanus Okokon (born 1989) is based in New Haven, Connecticut. He received a BFA in Film/Animation/Video from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2013 and an MFA in Painting/Printmaking from Yale University in 2020. His work is an investigation into how cultural, familial, ancestral, and personal memory is remembered, remediated, and forgotten. Working with painting, performance, film, video, animation, sound, assemblage, and collage as concurrent approaches, the work is concerned with loss, the assumed truth of the recorded document, and the moral function of memory.
Mengxi “Althea” Rao calls herself a cultural facilitator. She creates social engagement models to facilitate open and playful conversations around topics that are traditionally associated with shame and negativity, such as inherited privilege, mental illness, gender and sexuality. Her works empower individuals and help them find reconciliation with their cultures and selves. Originally from China, Althea trained in journalism and film, holds an MFA from Temple University, and was most recently a Halcyon Arts Lab Social Impact Fellow in Washington DC, where her work was featured in the By The People festival. During her residency, Althea will work on a project that explores cross-generational pelvic health through the merging of cutting-edge technology, music, play and collaboration.
Originally from Caracas, Venezuela, Anatar Marmol-Gagné holds a Masters of Fine Arts in University of Connecticut’s renowned Puppet Arts program. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English-Creative Writing from Hunter College, NY. During her residency, she plans to meld her background in art, dance, writing, fiber and fabrication with her training in puppetry to create an immersive installation that tells the story of DREAMers. Anatar trained at the National Puppetry Conference at the O’Neill Theater Center, taught children’s puppet workshops, performed in puppet slams and festivals at venues such as Dixon Place in NYC, and curated and founded the Pinned & Sewtured Puppet Slam in New Haven.
Erin Lee Antonak is a Wolf Clan member of the Oneida Indian Nation of New York. She has studied at Bard College, Lacoste School of the Arts and Vermont Studio Center. She is a visual artist and a milliner. Her work is an exploration of ceremony and healing rituals and has been shown in North America, South America, Africa, Europe and Asia.
Binwanka is an international, national, and virtually exhibited generalist of art, design, and technology who produces experimental analog, digital, and hybrid works using a variety of tools and techniques from the past, present, and future.
After graduating from The Cooper Union in New York, Willie Stewart went on to do his MFA at Yale University which he completed earlier this year. Solo exhibitions include “Grande Ole Opera” at Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY (2017), “House on Fascination Street” at Motel, Brooklyn (2016), “Runners” at Seed Space, Nashville, TN (2016), “Six Flags Part 2” at 41 Cooper Gallery, New York and “The Love You Withhold is the Pain that You Carry” at Kijidome, Boston, MA. Since 2017 Stewart has been represented by Moran Moran Gallery, Los Angeles.
Born and raised in Chicago, Zeph Farmby is a multi-disciplined artist and art activist. He started his career as a graffiti artist, covering the city of Chicago with his visions. His world-renowned “Eat The Rich” painting, vast murals, teachings, and art on apparel extends his creativity to all walks of life; the message is usually anti-greed, anti-capitalism and/or anti-establishment focused.
yoonjihae is a new media and performance artist whose work explores memory, loss, personal histories, narrative form, displacement and the body. Her work pulls from past experiences to contemplate the choreographies of space, trained bodies and the way we use non-verbal language to communicate via sound, light and gesture. During her one-year residency at Artspace, yoonjihae will continue her investigation into the capacity of the PDF (portable document file) to communicate via a non-linear narrative. She also plans to interrogate the internet as a space that dictates our livelihoods and compromises our sense of security.
yoonjihae was born in Chicago and moved to New Haven in 20015 to teach New Media at the Educational Center for the Arts and Gateway Community College. She graduated with an MFA in Film, Video and Performance from Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson (2014) after receiving a BFA in Studio Art from School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2007). She also studied at the Summer Studio Program at Oxbow School of Art (2004), with a concentration in Glass and Sculpture, and the United States Naval Academy (2002), with a concentration in Chemistry and Mathematics. yoonjihae currently lives and works in New Haven.
We are pleased to welcome Eben Kling as our new Artist-in-Residence for the coming year! Eben Kling, born in New Haven, has been living and working in Massachusetts for the last ten years. His work includes painting, sculpture, installation and animation as well as various collaborative efforts--most recently a project with Joe Saphire-- Playlaborplay, a series of curatorial projects based in western Massachusetts. He is a recent graduate from the Studio Arts department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where he earned his MFA.
Cayla Lockwood is an artist and freelance graphic designer. Originally from Michigan, Cayla joins us an a recent MFA graduate from Syracuse University.
Catalina is a Mexican artist living and working in New Haven, Connecticut. She received her BA in Fine Art from Central St. Martin’s Sculpture Department in London, UK.
Her artistic practice, although inextricably linked to photography, seeks to challenge the boundaries and traditions of both sculpture and photography. While in New Haven, Catalina showed work at the Young Men’s Institute Library and curated a show for the YMI’S Gallery.
With a background in graphic design and set design, Giada creates work using common objects and materials, reworking them to create something extraordinarily different. Giada’s paper-based sculpture graced the 2011 Alternative Space during City-Wide Open Studios, and we couldn’t be happier to have her in the gallery on a more permanent basis.
Burke was previously based in Hartford, CT, and has shown work throughout the state.
He received a BA from Central Connecticut State University in 2003 in Communications, and a second major in Studio Art in 2008.
His practice centers around analog, antique photographic processes and methods. During his residence at Artspace, Burke has been creating a new body of work involving long exposure pinhole camera images through a process known as solargraphy.