REVERBERATE

Fabian Lopez

Fabian Lopez is an internationally acclaimed street artist from Havana, Cuba. Otfen dubbed "The Banksy of Havana", Fabian expresses thoughts on socio-political issues mixed with the daily struggles of life through his balaclava clad character, Supermalo. His signature, "2+2=5?" means that something is wrong with the world, but we choose to ignore it. The equation begs one to think on many different levels, to second guess things, to push back against official narratives and indoctrination. His work is built on concepts of resistance and resilience and casts an urgent lens on contemporary societal issues that transcend country and continents.

Andreina Ron Pedrique

Venezuelan born Andreina Ron Pedrique is a third-generation contemporary artist based in Miami, Florida. Informed by her experiences, environment, and the complexity of the world that surrounds her, Ron Pedrique’s paintings are a living archive of emotional and spiritual creative reactivity. Hailing from a country once lauded for its commitment to the arts, but now a dangerous place for contemporary artistic expression, Ron Pedrique is a master at channeling this reality and exploring the raw, expressive potential of her chosen medium. The result is powerfully elegant artworks emblematic of abstract expressionism rejection of the traditional. Her work is in private and corporate collections around the world. In addition to her active studio practice, Ron Pedrique engages in public art projects in and around the Miami area, inviting youth to play and learn through artwork.

Carla Aaron-Lopez

Charlotte-based Carla Aaron-Lopez is a multidisciplinary artist whose work transcends medium. Frequently infused with song lyrics or meaningful text, Aaron-Lopez’s artworks reflect depth of intention and showcase art’s ability to contemporize the traditional. She is a deeply committed collaborator whose own work is frequently created with fellow artists at various stages of career. Aaron-Lopez has pioneered platforms for underground artists and built spaces that encourage experimentation in both Atlanta and Charlotte and is the brainchild behind sustainable initiatives supporting creatives of color including LOCAL/STREET at the Mint Museum.

Roy Strassberg

Roy Strassberg is a renowned ceramic artist whose work is devoted to remembrance. Based now in Davidson, North Carolina, Strassberg began his practice in New York, in the ceramic studio of the art department at SUCO Oswego, where he also met his wife and artist partner, Barbara. After decades of producing highly sought atier decorative and utilitarian vases, Strassberg was awarded a prestigious Faculty Research Grant from Mankato to study the Holocaust as a subject for artistic interpretation. The experience shifted his professional practice from one focused on aesthetic alone to one driven by passion and purpose. Rooted by an impending sense of time running short, Strassberg’s series of works remember and commemorate the Holocaust through unique forms such as fragment pots, enclosures, and architectural sculptures. Strassberg’s “conscious and irrevocable decision” to pursue work he feels called to make has placed him at the forefront of content-driven contemporary artwork that is collected around the world and prized for both its aesthetic excellence and depth of meaning.

Charles Farrar

The late Charles Farrar is an internationally celebrated wood artist whose artworks honor the valuable skills and creative abilities that enslaved Africans brought with them to the North and South American continents. Farrar’s fine art vessels hold and emotionally convey ideas and concepts. Farrar tapped into the universal symbols of totality, wholeness and timeliness to open the viewer’s eyes to the expansiveness of the cycles in time, life and nature itself. His works evoke a sense of wonder as they mirror the aesthetic standard of today while also providing a window into the historical context of the time. Farrar’s work is held in significant corporate and museum collections including The White House Collection, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Bank of America, the David Geffen Playhouse, Los Angeles; Harvey B. Gant Center for African-American Arts + Culture, and is held on permanent loan at the U.S. Embassy in Madagascar by the U.S. State Department. His work is also in the private collections of former Essence magazine editor Susan Taylor, actress Debbie Allen, retired General Wesley Clark, and the John & Vivian Hewit Collection of African-American Art.

Dammit Wesley

South Carolina native Dammit Wesley is a multi-disciplinary artist who uses a variety of media to create large-scale works that dissect themes of Race and American Consumerism; he also examines Charlotte’s history of Black excellence and contemplates its contemporary presence in his artwork. In addition to his personal artistic practice, Wesley is co-owner and Creative Director of BLK MRKT CLT, an artist run studio in Charlotte’s creative destination Camp North End. Wesley is the founder of Charlotte’s renowned Durag Fest and is a curator of in-demand events at museums and cultural institutions throughout the southeast.

Andrew Wilson

Detroit-based textile artist Andrew Wilson’s artwork is a meditation on slow crati and how this slowness collects, amplifies, and transports the viewer through care. In the words of the artist, the making of the work “is the way I peer into the archive and interrogate the histories that shape the fabric of Blackness.” Wilson’s work has been exhibited in galleries and institutions across the world, including with Carrie Mae Weems alongside the Havana, Cuba Biennial. He has been recognized with numerous distinguished awards and honors, including the Jack K. and Gertrude Murphy Award, the Carr Center Independent Scholars Fellowship, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts in NYC and The San Francisco Foundation. Wilson is also an alumni Artist in Residence at McColl Center.

Levi Robinson

Levi Robinson’s Art takes you on a journey through the sublime and familiar. He uses mixed media techniques to create visual art that serves as metaphors that encourage the viewer to reimagine the way they consider language, theatre, music, art and culture while exploring complex questions of race, religion, gender and politics. Levi’s work is now represented in several galleries in the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and Connecticut. He is co founder, program director and curator of the Hue2 Foundation, Grail Arthaus and is a leading member of DMV League of Artists art collective. He has participated in several major art fairs including Spectrum at Art Basel in Miami Beach, and Superfine DC. Through his partnership with PAINTS Institute a local non-profit organization, Levi has developed a burgeoning mural practice that has landed him media coverage from Reuters, New York Times, USA Today, National Geographic and ABC News.

J. Stacy Utley

J. Stacy Utley is a critically acclaimed artist whose work deconstructs and reconstructs narratives found within the African American diaspora. His artwork depicts the human spirit and celebration of African American culture through body movement, language, and personal history. Whether his work convey joy or struggle, each artwork reveals a silver lining of hope that is essential to the fabric of the African American spirit. “Sometimes we have to cry, be angry, and fall—it’s the telling of what makes us beautifully imperfect as humans that is my mission. I strive eternally to document the cultural spirit of fellowship, laughter, and love that is inherent to people of color,” notes Utley.

 Trained as both an architect and fine artist, Utley is limitless in his experimentation with medium: he works with found object, material, fabric, photography, advertisement, paint, and torn paper. In his mixed media collages and paintings, Utley seeks to find elements and juxtapose them next to one another to give the viewer an emotional and tectonic sense of the narrative. Like architecture, the layering is the building of a story. Utley constantly pushes through our cultural fabric to explore topics of institutionalized racism, civil rights, education, and gentrification.