Viewing entries in
2022-2024

Misha Ilin

Misha Ilin

Misha Ilin (b. 1985; Protvino, Russia) received a Master’s in Mathematics and Informatics from the National University of Science and Technology in Moscow, Russia. In 2016 he moved to the United States and received his MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Ilin’s recent exhibitions include wish the past never to repeat itself, the kitchen, Berlin, Germany, inquisitive instructions, Modern Art Museum, Shanghai, China, Artist-As-Organizer, Washington Project for Arts, DC, hostipitality, Baltimore, MD, and order of things, Homme Gallery, DC.

Artist statement

My work explores the practice of instructions and situations as a medium to reveal the intimate connection between our layered identities and the contractual social interactions that exist around us. By experimenting with different forms of unities emerging between participants of his performative installations, I seek to provoke both collaborative and rival relationships with their audience to problematize our domestic rituals, social practices, and behaviors and comment on issues of labor, social roles, immigration, race, and inequality.

Madyha J. Leghari

Madyha J. Leghari

 

Madyha J. Leghari (b. 1991) is a visual artist, writer, and educator working between Lahore and Washington, DC. She earned a BFA at the National College of Arts, Lahore (2013) and an MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design (2018) on a Fulbright Scholarship. Her practice often revolves around the possibilities and limitations of language, and is often positioned in the indeterminate spaces of translation, cultural friction, and semantic lacunae.

Madyha has been the recipient of the Mansion Artist Residency; Delta Research Placement at the Flat Time House; Siena Art Institute Artist Residency and the Murree Museum residency.

She has exhibited her works internationally at platforms such as the Pera Museum, University of Colorado Boulder, Bennington College, Sea Foundation, The Institute for Experimental Arts, Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, Nottingham Arts Mela, 17th Athens Digital Arts Festival, Antimatter, and others across the Americas, Asia, and Europe.

Madyha has written on art for a number of publications including ArtNow Pakistan and the Dawn Newspaper. She has teaching experience at the National College of Arts, Lahore, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston and the Beaconhouse National University, Lahore.

Artist statement

I am moved by the possibilities as well as the limitations of language. Growing up, I spoke Saraiki at home, Balochi with cousins, Urdu amongst peers and, later, English at school. This background attuned me to the fraught nature of language. It is one of the finest tools in the human inventory, and yet it fails us every day through its incomplete nature; its inability to accurately map the world; its (mis)translations; and its easy assimilation into communicative capitalism. I use these failures as fertile points of departure. Thus, my work is often positioned in the intermediate spaces of translation, cultural frictions, and linguistic lacunae.

Through various strategies, I attempt to negate word and describe a world without the interference of language. These strategies include plasticity, which emphasizes that language can belong to the empirical as equally as the rational. I examine physical manifestations of language as book, paper, library, and archive to emphasize its sensuous promise.

In some works, I focus on literalism, attempting the most direct possible realizations of language to both demonstrate its tenuous relationship with this world and to open up a different one. In other works, I examine the relationship of speech, voice, and the body, unpacking assumptions behind the authority, neutrality, and visibility of the narrator. Moreover, I remain interested in chance operations wherein language is severed from intention. Lastly, I lean on the ability of poetry and fiction to bend language away from description to say much more than mere ‘fact.’ I use multiple forms such as video, photography, sound, installation, printmaking, and painting, but language consistently remains important across all of them.

Edgar Reyes

Edgar Reyes

Edgar Reyes (b. Guadalajara, Mexico) is a multimedia artist and educator based in the Baltimore and Washington D.C. area. Reyes’s work invites viewers to think about the people, places, and connections they carry with them. His practice draws on the specifics of his own life, and reflections of shared experiences of resettlement and migration. Through his art making he explores his family’s Mexican and Indigenous roots.

Reyes earned his MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and has taught at nonprofit organizations, schools, universities, and museums. His work has been prominently featured in large scale public installations including Sueños, a monumental light box and banners displayed during Baltimore’s Light City Festival (2017), and Xochitl, vivid abstract patterns installed in shop windows in Rockville, MD as part of the VisArts Make It Visible project (2021). His work has been featured in galleries and public spaces across the United States. He has developed installations for the Walters Art Museum (Baltimore, MD), where his work was exhibited in dialogue with the permanent collection, and encouraged community participation. Recent honors include Rubys Artist Grant recipient (2021), Keyholder Resident Artist at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center (2021), Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize Semifinalists (2021), and Bresler Resident Artist at VisArts (2021).

Artist statement

Many of my projects are autobiographical and a reflection of my personal journey as an undocumented youth in the United States. My work focuses on the precious and difficult moments my family and community face. Overall my practice is inspired by our shared experiences and my passion to highlight connections between the art of our ancestors and the contemporary Mexican diaspora. I explore how the blending of Indigenous and European traditions is an ongoing process of conquest and resistance. My art making is centered around building compassion and understanding around the complex history of forced and volunteering resettlement throughout the Americas. I emphasize the beauty of being Mexican American, yet question my national and cultural traditions. I usually create pieces in a collaborative platform as an act of healing and as a resource to creatively engage others in our connection to the land and our narratives of survival.

Isabella Whitfield

Isabella Whitfield

Isabella Whitfield (b. 1998; Centreville, VA) is a multidisciplinary artist who works in collaboration with manufactured and natural environments. After graduating from the University of Virginia in 2020, she completed a year-long postgraduate program as an Aunspaugh Art Fellow. Whitfield has exhibited major works at New City Arts, Ruffin Gallery, the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Museum, and InLight 2021 with 1708 Gallery. She has participated in residencies with the Visual Arts Center of Richmond, OxBow School of Art, and Pyramid Atlantic Art Center.

Artist statement

Isabella Whitfield’s artistic practice encompasses site-responsive installation, papermaking, sculpture, and landscaping. She makes meditative, performative work that considers the contradictory relationships between the environment, physical homeland, human labor, and historical object functionality. Whitfield’s projects often contain an act of collaborative generosity, inviting the viewer to become part of the work through physical immersion or participatory artistic creation.

The process of creating installations adopts motions of repetitive labor, often presenting a challenge of physical endurance through performative digging, measuring, and stitching. Incorporating both ephemeral materials and sacred geometries, her work hinges on fragile precision and is expected to formally deteriorate over time. The inevitable decomposition of materials echo notions of life cycles and renewal; examining continuous de/reconstruction of self.