Being a person born and raised in Vietnam, who also studied in Russia and lived in the US, has given me the opportunity to live and travel through numerous countries and be exposed to multiple cultures. I started painting when I was a little girl. My passion for art truly came to life in 2001 when I moved to Moscow to study industrial design. Seven years in school with lessons in paintings, graphics, sculpture, photography… sowed in me a love for arts and rendered arts a part of my life. In 2010, my family and I moved to the US to settle down in Washington D.C.
Kelci Tillman is an artist and writer living in Baltimore, MD. Kelci Tillman studied Graphic Design at Academy of Art University from 2012-2015, but realized that she wanted to explore different mediums and the freedom of not being behind a computer. She graduated with an Associate of Arts Degree and began freelancing and honing in on more illustrative work. Since then, Tillman has explored drawing, painting, and writing as her main mediums. Tillman debuted her first paintings at a solo show, Freakbanana, at Wet City Brewing during Artscape in 2019.
Emelie A Glessner is a Sweden born, America made, fine art painter, and mother of three. She moved to the United States in her early twenties for college, and ended up spending close to a decade in Southern California. Introductory art classes at the school exposed her to different tools, mediums, and techniques, some of which she further explored, independently for years to come, while taking every opportunity to learn more, and to grow as an artist.
Melvin Nesbitt Jr is a Baltimore based visual storyteller exploring the American experiences of Black youth. Born on June 19, 1973 in South Carolina, much of his childhood was spent in the Spartanburg housing project, “Tobe Hartwell,” an experience that has directly influenced his artistic practice today. Through painted paper collage, he portrays the joyful innocence of his younger years, as a child in the late 1970’s and early 1980s.
Multimedia Salvage Artist
As an artist, my work encapsulates a personal perspective of politics and poverty through a representational exploration in the psychological and anthropological human behaviors within impoverished communities in the United States. The narratives created through drawing and painting allow art to act as a space for progressive discussions. What I have concluded through research and personal experiences is that governments release primitive forces in human beings. It’s important to understand the power structure underlying the social order of the world we live in. bell hooks speaks about an