Noah Lawrence-Holder, Artist-in-Residence
Noah Lawrence-Holder is a black, nonbinary artist from Madison WI, now based in the Twin Cities. Their work consists of illustrations and animation that explore intersectionality, equity
and racial justice.
Maiya Lea Hartman, Artist-in-Residence
Maiya Lea Hartman is a Painter, Mixed-media artist, and Muralist living and working in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Maiya’s practice draws from personal memories and moments that examine identity, expression, and the body through the lens of a Queer, Black, Non-binary person. Their practice is intimate, touching on the innocence of childhood and examining the pressures of gender performativity through family portraits and self-portraiture. The memories and feelings they draw from are recontextualized by placing the figures in undefined landscapes, allowing their body language and facial expressions to communicate messages. Maiya explores ancestral influences by using mixed-media materials such as braiding hair, fabric, and hand-carved Adinkra symbols. The use of such materials paying homage to the weight and history they hold in African-American identities as traditions we have held onto from our African Ancestors. Maiya currently holds a studio space in PF Studio #285 in the Northrup King Building. They were part of the initial cohort of artists in Studio400, a studio program for emerging artists formed in 2019 by Leslie Barlow and Public Functionary. Since the summer, they have created several public art projects in collaboration with Creatives After Curfew, a collective creating public art that visions a future rooted in Justice, Unity, and Liberation for BIPOC.
Sean G. Phillips, Artist-in-Residence
Sean G. Phillips (seangarrison) is a native Detroiter currently residing in Minneapolis, MN. He is a writer and Abstract painter in which both disciplines cross-influence the other. The influences range from the words of Nikki Giovanni, Amiri Baraka, Pablo Neruda and Yusef Komuyakaa to Frank Bowling, Jackson Pollack, Willem de kooning and Ed Clark. A self-taught artist he feels that all artists should have a foundational understanding of art but art is conceived in the soul of the artist which precludes an academic knowledge. He enjoys visual art in its entirety; but, abstract art’s ability to elicit different responses to “what it is” intrigues him as no answer, in his opinion, is essentially wrong.
Kehayr Brown-Ransaw, Artist-in-Residence
Kehayr Brown-Ransaw is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and curator with a BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (‘19). Brown-Ransaw’s practice engages in conversations of individualism v. collectivism, familial histories, concepts of gendered work, tradition, and Blackness/Black identity through quilting, weaving and printmaking. He is a current 2020/21 ECI Emerging Curator Fellow and 2020/21 Jerome Early Career Fellow. Additionally, Brown-Ransaw is an active and operating member of the People’s Library having exhibited works at and collaboratively in arts programming at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Soap Factory, Walker Art Center, and Minneapolis Institute of Art.
