Frank’s photographic interests include landscapes, seascapes, sports/action, and cityscapes. As on this adventure, they make the most of travel opportunities and often bring home images of the places they are fortunate enough to be able to visit. The drive through Joshua Tree National Park and this portfolio of images was one their many opportunities provided on this cross–country excursion. The extremely arid environment provided surprisingly colorful images, however they decided to present these images in black and white to highlight the Joshua Trees’ plight. While there are conflicting views about the Joshua Trees’ chances for long term survival, there is concern that they are threatened by a variety of made–made and natural factors including global warming’s impact on their environment. The point being that there are limits to the survivability of vegetation even if the vegetation is already adapted to the Park’s extreme hot and dry conditions.

Olga’s work is based on drawing, a technique that has been a source of research and discovery, a tool that has helped them discover what is in front of their eyes… Graphite, grease pencil, ink or charcoal have been recurring materials throughout of the production of their work. The main subject of this project is nature as a vibrant entity where our senses and thoughts are nourished; imagination and intellectual exercise as basic elements of graphic work; the line as a structural part, its directing and connective function; but also the gesture, the action and the power of its expression. Nature expresses itself daily through cycles that involve a process of growth and destruction, but also of regeneration and untimely creation in new forms.

Riley was raised in the Patapsco River Valley southwest of Baltimore, Maryland. The area has played many roles over its lifetime, but its roots lie in the manufacturing industry, which dates back to pre-Revolutionary War America. Their family came to the valley generations ago to pursue work in the various milling operations that dotted the landscape. In From Yonder Wooded Hill, Riley grapples with what we choose to remember versus what chooses to remember us. The result creates a visual narrative that juxtaposes their own heritage and that of their ancestors to show the interwoven continuum of a long-passed yet ever-present culture embedded in hills near and far to their upbringing. It is this notion of ‘never entirely lost’ that drives the progression of history as a rippling entity, instead of a linear track, eager to bob to the surface whenever we choose to pay attention.

Starting on January 1, 2023, the images in the All These Miles series document a physical approach to creating art and each combines information and images taken from trail runs—the distance, elevation, route, time, landscape photography, and objects. The inception of each piece is the physical act of running, creating the course that can range from less than a mile to 38 miles (so far) and last as long as a day. Before, during, or after each run, photographs are taken of the landscape and objects found, and then, once in the studio, these are combined with the data from the run into unique collages that serve as visual journal entries. Often, conversation heard on the run or pertinent news articles from the day will be woven into the artwork to add context.

While the current focus of Patricia’s work is installation based, the breadth of their work is tied together via investigation of feminine–gendered materials, colors, shapes, textures, processes, and imagery. These investigations appear as sculptures that hang on the wall; intimate compositions which are beautiful at first glance but err on the side of grotesque. Amalgamations of faux flowers or vintage lace are imbedded within substrates of odd angles and obtrusive shapes. The armatures of these pieces are created through woodworking and metal manipulation, both activities viewed as masculine. The marriage of materials and processes that exist throughout the spectrum of gender leads them to question that very spectrum and why humans feel the need to gender activities and inanimate objects.

For generations, social standards have dictated how women ought to live. These standards, which are often rooted in the sexual objectification of women while simultaneously repressing their sexuality, functionally carve women down into hollow shells. In becoming more acceptable versions of themselves, women are stripped of their personhoods and potential. But what if a woman could live in her natural, wild form? What is the actual source of a woman’s beauty and how can we, as a society, move away from the notion that a woman’s worth is merely external? There is power in exploring identity and these avatars are Traci’s key to that. By presenting themselves unselfconsciously, the figures reclaim their power. They exist in a space that is not impeded by heteronormativity, race, or misogyny. While the viewer’s observation of them is ultimately not in their control, these characters are free from care. This invites viewers to examine how they project womanhood onto others and themselves.

Rachel’s studio practice is centered on environmental concerns. Action and consequence are addressed through works focused on endemic versus nonnative flora and fauna, accumulations and tolerances, often through a holistic use of materials. Many of their earlier pieces addressed invasive species, particularly the ones we choose to introduce to our environments for their inherent beauty, ones that, as we look at their beauty in the present, pose a danger for the ecological balance of the future. Their current body of work is related to environmental conservation, each series are studies in water: the rapid disappearance of glaciers and sea ice, the positive impact of restorative aquaculture, the bleaching of coral reefs, the accumulated pollution levels in sediment, the fossil evidence of long ago waters now desert. Many of these works are partially or wholly constructed from reclaimed materials from their employer, creating a recycling system where one does not exist.

These paintings reflect Robin’s interest in environmental and cultural issues, and the image/message overload of daily life. The daily noise and misinformation spread by corporations, politics, and Facebook too often divert attention from critical global concerns. In painting, they investigate this content by layering images, diagrams, text, and code. Their interactions suggest further visual and meaningful changes. Robin seeks a fusion of mental and physical space more than a singular focused result. At times they exaggerate color contrasts or build patterns to abrasive levels to draw attention to toxic threats, or climate change. Some works walk a line between lush landscape beauty and the lethal results of human interference. (Is it a tropical paradise, or global warming? …sun on the water, or factory runoff…?) The painting’s final state may raise as many questions as it answers.

Dodd creates artwork examining distinctive composition blended with a maximized color theory set to data driven patterning, mathematics and time executed to verify environmental awareness. Visuals weave through color filled constructions with rigid, measured definitions of space that embrace a highly developed use of method and unique compositional balance culminating to amplify today’s contemporary landscapes in crisis. Creating a recognizable contemporary style, Dodd’s work is bursting with rhythmic and thematic technical visuals that document multiple moments into vivid complex visions. Inspired by research about environmental conditions and scientifically collected data charts Dodd explores art as social response awareness and habitat defender. These engaging works are executed as a true art experience for the viewer telling a visual story with purpose and unexpected movement that deeply invites the audience to look passionately into contemporary fine art spirited by the environmental concerns.

Michael looks for images in reflections that occur on the surface of water, inviting the viewer to examine what they perceive around them each day. Although the dreamlike designs are reminiscent of modern abstract paintings, they are entirely real. The effect is achieved by a combination of ripples in the water, the angle of light, water clarity, and other factors. No oils or digital touch-ups are used; the process begins and ends organically with the art created around us by nature. When seen in context the photographs are realistic and documentary; when taken by themselves they are non-representational and abstract. The difference is in how the viewer sees.

For Lusmerlin, creativity is the process, the experience and the result. Sometimes art is only one of the three, sometimes it is all of them. This is why their work is multidisciplinary and multi-experiential. Creation takes place in the studio, on the road, in public spaces, perhaps as an improvised performance, perhaps as a faithful photograph. It shows their journey of building a new identity as they pick their new labels, travel new states, enter a male-dominated industry, change their language, re-define their womanhood and become unapologetic about their body.

Harin’s practice travels among the categories of painting, sculpture, and craft by transforming acrylic paint’s physical properties. They mix acrylic paint inside of a tube, then squeeze it out to dry, cut the dry ones, and melt the paint grains between the holes of the wire mesh with a heat press machine. The polymer, an acrylic paint binder, melts under heat and sticks to the metal. Press and press to flatten. After going through a series of processes; liquid paint dries into a solid form, liquefies again by melting, and finally solidifies as the temperature goes down; the paint exists squeezing itself into the gap between a wire mesh.

As James Baldwin put it: “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.” This has always resonated with Desmond as a Black man. His lifelong pursuit is to genuinely and honestly express his lived experience through art-making. The African storytelling tradition is a thread that runs through Desmond’s work. Honoring his immediate ancestors as well as those of the African Diaspora is a priority. His highest goal is to turn the terrible into the beautiful, as his work is motivated by recent and historical developments about the African American experience as well as anti-Blackness. He is inspired by images of Black people during the Middle Passage, in the Jim Crow South, and by their representation in today’s mass media. Desmond’s artwork frequently addresses the racial stereotypes that affect Black people. The work’s deliberateness remixes, reclaims, and reexamines the Black struggle. The works of art serve as a forum for illuminating the existence of the nameless, grief, celebration, and resistance.

Prosper Aluu makes figurative and expressive paintings. His stylized figures show the use of the artistic devices of elongation and exaggeration and his unique style of painting the iconic afro hairstyle. These are his ways of celebrating and negotiating African identity. Prosper grew up drawing comics and characters which enabled him understand the human figure and expressions properly, after which he became a full–time studio artist in 2017. In traditional African art visual codes, the exaggeration of the head in comparison to other parts of the body is a well–known visual strategy to establish the head as the seat of wisdom and intellectual prowess according to the beliefs in parts of Africa. Prosper plays with the size, forms and presentation of the head of the figures in his paintings as a visual pun to challenge what he considers a one–sided narrative about the size of the head in traditional African art. While he focuses on black identity, with this he believes that in order to preserve culture, he must continue to create it.

Reshada Pullen-Jireh is a visual storyteller, a teaching artist, and a visual arts leader in the Metro Washington, DC area. They are fascinated by people. Joys, challenges, triumphs, and the ways we give and receive love. They are captivated by the way people express the God within themselves, uniquely, and delight in the manifestation of our creator’s multifaceted being through people. In their work, they question what makes a thing powerful. Sadness, fear, and pain is commonly viewed as powerful because these feelings are oppressive. An onslaught of images of victimization, criminalization, dehumanization or simply overall omission can cause indelible damage for generations. Negativity robs those who engage in it the power and strength to go on, to continue, it extracts the will to live. They choose joy, and take on their own empowerment and in their choosing, they are strengthened and energized. It takes boldness to continue to activate joy when the temptation to suffer is high. They combat tokenism and stereotypical tropes that flood our visual culture. They seek to communicate love, earnest expectation, and life.

For years, Abi took multiple colors of the highest magnitude of pigmentation to paint their reality. And it worked. It exposed the intense emotions they were feeling on the inside and the mania within their mind. However, the continuous layering of these intense colors created deep and dark tones and shadows which eventually consumed them. Having learnt about the power of color in the most profound way, their paintbrush and canvas began to become their healing. The result of this, a collection of canvases whimsically whistling a majestic melody of self-care, self-preservation and self-appreciation which enchants and enraptures its consumer. Canvases conspicuously caressed with pastel tones, pale and soft yet bold with the redolent essence of femininity. A gift they share with the world. One that lets them know that sometimes we all feel ‘fine’, but not ok and it is important that we express and share these feelings. A gift that they see an urgent need for because too many lives are senselessly lost because we fear showing our instability to a society that at times demands more than is humanly possible of humans programmed to never think their best is good enough.

Asia’s paintings are intimate reflections of her life, exploring love, family, childhood, and the complexities of bittersweet relationships. These small windows into her personal space create a dynamic interplay between voyeurism and exhibitionism, inviting viewers to connect with the nostalgia and relatability of her experiences. Through this, they may gain new perspectives, while Asia delves deeper into self-discovery. Art has been a source of healing, growth, and reflection for her as a Black woman. I draw inspiration from nature, identity, and my journey from childhood to womanhood. The figures in her work, often friends or family, imbue her art with sentimentality and care, enriching the narrative. Watercolor painting is a meditative practicer, involving repetitive mark-making and glazing. She intuitively know when to let the water take over and when to exert control. Through this process, Asia creates works that resonate with both personal and universal themes, offering a space for viewers to reflect and connect.

John Lister, III was born in Shreveport, LA in 1985 on July 8th. Lister spent a majority of his life between Maryland and Louisiana. He claims his first stint at creating, was at a very young age with his food, i.e. oatmeal. The child would take his toddler hands and draw abstractly in the overturned bowl remnants of oatmeal. Upon seeing this, his educator of a grandmother Ella D. Douglas, whom he affectionately named “Grants.” Grants then thought it be wise to introduce crayons and coloring books to the young child. By time he was 4 years old, he grasped and understood the female figure and male figure via Jet magazines comic books, and from watching sports, which he often would recreate as doodles. While playing and having a short football career due to surgery to lengthen his limb, Lister discovered “Grey’s Anatomy.” The book which was given to him to read and study to keep from bothering the nurses on duty at the hospital while recovering. This can be seen in his works of art dealing with his femur and gives an explanation for the usage medical themes. It wasn’t until college however at Morgan State University where he decided to become serious about creating, learning and producing art work.

Having been recognized as a resilient and vibrant artist, Errol is inspired by the warmth of nature that surrounds him. As a creator of nature on canvas, panel, or whatever the surface is, it takes discipline, will power, courage and determination to represent nature in its true form, pure! Errol is inspired by some of the greatest painters who have ever lived, and favors impressionism, Modern Art and Cubism. Inherently, he has been a painter from creation, and as he grew older he realized, when you are chosen for a specific purpose in life you holds the key to your destiny.

Errol’s process is a very simple one, which he believes leads to a great end result. After careful observation of the motif, weather for time of day, weather or season, and most of all the narrative within, he then sketches directly with paint onto the canvas, panel, board or wall depending on the surface. As he proceeds, Errol paints what he sees within the light key which transforms the object to life.

Errol is currently exploring a variety of methods seeking to invent the hidden secrets of modern art and cubism.

James Stephen Terrell is a native Washingtonian who was reared in Ward 7. His parents are Rev. Dr. James E. Terrell, Pastor of historic Second Baptist Church of Washington D.C. and Retired Superior Court Associate Judge Mary A. Terrell of the Superior Court of Washington D.C. He received his high school diploma from Gonzaga College High School in Washington D.C. He received the Bachelor of Fine Art in 1999 from Howard University, Master of Fine Arts in 2002 from Parsons School of Design in New York City and the Master of Divinity Degree from the Union Theological Seminary in New York City with a concentration on Theology and the Fine Arts in 2006. While attending Union Theological Seminary, he pursued Fine Arts painting elective courses at Columbia University.  Terrell has exhibited his work all over the country and had multiple solo shows including at museums.