Justin Garcia is a time architect, influenced by the timeless connection between art and science studied by Da Vinci. His lifelong fascination with aging and how change occurs over time led him to undergo a deep self-psychoanalysis through the abstraction of his first seven series spanning over a decade. All Garcia’s earlier works are pieces of a larger puzzle. To analyze, document, and assemble this puzzle, he took two years away from the art scene, several months of which he spent isolated in central Mexico. There, he mapped and constructed a theoretical model that captures the intersection of experience, awareness, and control across time and subject matter (Humanity’s Sustainable Infinite). In late 2015, he announced the completion and publication of his first book, One Ton Goldfish: In Search of the Tangible Dream, a retrospective of his seven series in which Garcia’s personal truth carried some universal meaning that lead to the creation of his theoretical model and latest works. Since, Garcia has been featured at the Venice Biennale, Art Basel, Seattle art fair, and Florence Biennale, which honored the centennial of Da Vinci. There was a guest lecture on art and science, and awarded the Medici medal for his exhibition.
http://justingarciaart.com/
Icess Fernandez Rojas is an educator, writer, podcaster, and a former journalist. She is a graduate of Goddard College’s MFA program. Her work has been internationally published in Queen Mobs Lit Journal, Poetry 24, Rabble Lit, Minerva Rising Literary Journal, and the Feminine Collective’s anthology Notes from Humanity. Her Houston-based story, “Happy Hunting”, was recently published in the Houston Noir anthology. Her podcast, Dear Reader, is based on the popular blog of the same name. Her nonfiction/memoir work has appeared in Dear Hope, NBCNews.com, HuffPost and the Guardian. She is a recipient of the Owl of Minerva Award, a VONA/Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation alum, a Dos Brujas Workshop alum, and a Kimbilio Fellow. She’s currently working on her first novel and finishing her memoir, Problematic.
Follow her on Twitter: @Icess and at her website: http://icessfernandez.com.
Artist, Mario E. Figueroa, Jr., artistically known as GONZO247, was born and raised in Houston, Texas. He is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist with over 25 years of experience in street art, public, and private art commissions. Community involvement has been a considerable component of his activities as an artist. His experiences as a youth in the Houston community and his ancestors’ culture artistically inspire GONZO247. His early on admiration of the arts was the public art mural, The Rebirth of our Nationality (1973), by Leo Tanguma located in East End Houston, Texas, where he spent most of his childhood. He realized later on in life that the mural was the spark of his becoming a future artist. In his teens, he discovered and realized his artist identity through the visual language of Hip Hop, the graffiti art culture. The culture of Hip Hop was artistic expression by kids who were his age, and looked like him, more so than the examples he was being shown in school those days. He produced an Aerosol Warfare video series, established the Houston Wall of Fame in the 1990s (the city’s first and significant art production of its kind of that time), and has participated in projects working with top brand campaigns that speak to urban communities. He is known to be a key figure in pioneering the graffiti and street art culture as a leading underground art movement in Houston. Although he fully embraced, breathed, and participated in the Hip Hop culture, the primary element he practiced was graffiti art, and today he gives nod to his roots in his current works that have evolved overtime. In addition to public and private commissions, he strives to make time for independent studio work and on-going and longer-term collaborative endeavors through Aerosol Warfare, The Graffiti and Street Art Museum of Texas, and the Houston Urban Experience (HUE) Biennial Mural Festival. He continues to educate communities through civic art engagement, leading by example, and meaningful large-scale creative activities. Internationally recognized and inspired through travels, you will find the visual and cultural arts ambassador contributing to his hometown of Houston, a true art destination, or innovating and exploring a new concept or his next artistic idea.
Ashley DeHoyos is a cultural producer and educator born and raised in Baytown, TX. She received a BFA from Sam Houston State University (2013) and MFA in Curatorial Practice from Maryland Institute College of Art (2016). As of 2018, they have served as the Curator at DiverseWorks in Houston, TX, where they have organizes a full range of visual, performing, and public arts programming. Through their curatorial practice, Dehoyos is focused on creating cultural platforms with intersectional perspectives and speculative futures as they relate to history and the environment. Recent projects include the performance Jefferson Pinder: Fire & Movement; the 2019 Bayou City Be All LGBTQ+ performance festival; and the group exhibition Collective Presence. In addition to their role as curator at DiverseWorks DeHoyos also manages the Diverse Discourse and The Idea Fund, a regranting program co-adminsitrated by DiverseWorks, Aurora Picture Show, and Project Row Houses, supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation.
Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton is an internationally known writer, educator, activist, and Poet Laureate Emeritus of Houston, Texas. Formerly ranked the #2 Best Female Poet in the World, Her work has appeared in Houston Noir by Akashic Press (2019), Black Girl Magic by Haymarket Books (2019), Fjords Journal, Crab Orchard Review, and on such platforms as NPR, BBC, ABC, Apple News, Blavity, Upworthy, and across the TedX circuit. She serves as a contributing writer to Texas Monthly and Glamour. Her most recent poetry collection, Newsworthy, won honorable mention for the Summerlee Book Prize. A German translation, under the title “Berichtenswert,” is set to be released in Fall 2021 by Elif Verlag.
Grace Zuñiga is an artist, curator, and arts administrator originally form Sandia, Texas.In 2007, she received her BFA from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, with a focus in photography and in 2012 received her MFA in studio art, with a focus in printmaking, from the University of Georgia, Lamar Dodd School of Art in Athens,Georgia. In May of 2014, Zuñiga completed a nine-month residency at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft and currently holds the position of Creative Director at Sawyer Yards. In her role, Zuñiga strives to build bridges within Houston’s arts community by creating opportunities for local, national, and international artists and arts organizations.
Janavi Mahimtura Folmsbee wants to live in a world where everyone can experience the beauty of our oceans. She was born and raised in Mumbai, India in a home overlooking the Indian Ocean. She is a 2009 graduate of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (S.A.I.C). She currently lives and works in Houston. Folmsbee has shown her work in Mumbai, Beijing, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Dubai, and the United States. Her works have been featured in international fairs, including Kunst Rai, Art Rotterdam, The Indian Contemporary Art Fair, Texas Contemporary Art Fair, Arte Dubai; in print media, including Harper’s Bazaar (Malaysia edition), The Times of India, the Houston Chronicle, Houston Modern Luxury, and Verve (India); and in television interviews on ABC News and KRPC Houston. Folmsbee has created large fine art murals throughout Houston, which can be found on Google Earth. Her public works also include an important commission from the Red Cross Society in Mumbai, India.
Folmsbee collaborates and works with marine organizations like the G.B.F, Correa Lab, Maar Alliance, National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (N.O.A.A), and the Coral Restoration Foundation to help preserve our oceans. Recently, she created artwork used in scientific papers published in the Global Change Journal. The papers are used for research and studied by doctoral students worldwide. Her art practice appeals to broad audiences and educates them about the marine world. She also engages the general public through her official artwork for the 2019 Houston Chevron Marathon, the 2017 Super Bowl, and the FIFA World Cup 2024.
Folmsbee is on the Board of a non-profit called Writers In The schools (WITS). She is passionate about helping others in the community and does a lot of administrative volunteer work. Folmsbee is also a Panelist at the Houston Arts Alliance.
Francis Almendárez is an interdisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and educator that traverses the intersections of history, (auto)ethnography, and the arts. Using them as tools to address memory and trauma, he attempts to unpack and reconstruct identity, specifically of im/migrant, queer, working-class bodies of Central America, the Caribbean, and their diasporas. Almendárez has participated in exhibitions, screenings, and performances in the US and abroad. Recent shows including rhythm and (p)leisure, Artpace, San Antonio, TX; The Potential Wanderer, The Reading Room, Dallas, TX; Sisyphus, Ver.20.18, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan; and Voices of Our Mothers: Transcending Time and Distance, Houston Center for Photography, Houston, TX. Almendárez is the recipient of various awards including a Houston Artadia Award, the Carol Crow Memorial Fellowship from Houston Center for Photography, and artist grants, in collaboration with his brother Anthony Almendárez, from Y.ES Contemporary and the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance. He has been a participant of the Artpace International Artist-in-Residence program, and the Institute of Contemporary Art Moscow Summer School. Writing on his work has been featured in publications including D Magazine, spot Magazine, Artforum, ARTNEWS, Glasstire, Y.ES Contemporary, and The Dallas Morning News among others. Almendárez was born and raised in Los Angeles, CA and is currently living and working in Houston, TX where he is a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Houston School of Art. He received his MFA in Fine Art (with Distinction) from Goldsmiths, University of London and a BFA in Sculpture/New Genres from Otis College of Art and Design.
Marlana Doyle is originally from Massachusetts and graduated from Point Park University in 2001 with a BA in Dance. Marlana is the former Artistic Director of Met Dance, where she held various positions for seventeen years. Under her direction, Marlana’s vision and leadership catapulted the company to new levels of excellence and growth while holding tightly to the company’s long tradition of diversity and versatility in its dancers, choreographers, collaborators, and content. Marlana is the President & CEO of the Institute of Contemporary Dance Houston which houses Houston Contemporary professional concert dance company and HC2, a youth training company. Marlana is a member of Dance Source Houston, Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) and Dance USA, spending 2009-2012 as an emerging leader at both APAP and Dance USA. She was awarded the Dance USA Leadership Mentee Fellowship for the institute of training in 2012 and was a mentor for the same program in 2019. She also recently completed her three-year tenure as a Dance USA Board of Trustee member and Artistic Director Council Chair. Marlana has also served on many grant and organizational panels for the Houston Arts Alliance and Dance Source Houston. As a performer, Marlana has danced and generated roles in a range of works by renowned choreographers and artists. Marlana is also a guest teacher and an award-winning choreographer for her students in Houston and throughout the United States. She has choreographed for the City of Houston, Levi’s and Walmart, Mercury Ensemble, Apollo Chamber Players, Houston Chamber Choir, Houston Symphony, TUTS and Lamar University. She lives in Sugar Land, TX with her husband Ben and her two adorable daughters Olivia and Evie.
2017 Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs Artist in Resident and 2016 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and The Idea Fund Recipient, Emanuelee Outspoken Bean is a performance poet, writer, compassionate mentor, electric entertainer and educator. Bean uses poetry to collaborate with other mediums and institutions such as being the first poet to perform on a main stage production of Houston Ballet’s Play. Also, creating his own festival, Plus Fest the EVERYTHING plus POETRY Festival. That work ethic has taken him to perform in Trinidad to Miami to South Dakota to Broadway, over 35 states, 200 universities, annually performing in front of thousands of people and across the vast Houston Metropolitan where he inspires people from all walks of life. Also, Bean was commissioned to write and perform a national campaign on diversity for Pabst Blue Ribbon and VICE. He was the 2011 Texas poet laureate nominee, ranked 9th in the Individual World Poetry Slam 2013, ranked 2nd in collaborative poetry at Group Piece Finals 2013, and ranked 9th at National Poetry Slam 2014. He started performing spoken-word in 2005. In his senior year at Prairie View A&M, Bean founded and coached the University’s first poetry slam team. In their first year, they won the title in their region and grabbed the 8th place ranking in the country at College Union Poetry Slam Invitational (CUPSI ’08).
Julia Barbosa Landois is a performance, installation, and video artist based in Houston, TX. Her work has been featured in galleries, museums and performance festivals in the United States, Latin America, and Europe. Awards include grants from Artpace and the Artist Foundation of San Antonio, and residencies at the Santa Fe Art Institute (USA), Lademoen Kunstnerverksteder (Norway), and Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Germany). She was a 2018-2019 Studio Resident at the Lawndale Art Center and received a grant from the National Association of Latino Arts & Cultures in 2019 to co-create MantecaHTX. Barbosa Landois has worked as a studio artist, itinerant professor, preparator, exhibitions coordinator, grant writer, garden educator, and math tutor.
Sarah Rafael García is a local writer, community educator, and performance ethnographer. She’s the author of Las Niñas and SanTanas Fairy Tales, co-editor of pariahs writing from outside the margins and the sci-fi anthology Speculative Fiction for Dreamers as well as founder of Barrio Writers and LibroMobile. Currently, she splits her time between shipping books out to loyal readers across the nation and developing an archival ethnofiction project for the life of Modesta Avila as a 2020 USLDH Mellon-Funded Grantee.
From Houston’s Southeast side, Bassist/Songwriter Nick Gaitan grew up in a working class area of the city where to the sounds of Tejano, Country, Swamp Pop, Rock n’ Roll, and Soul all fed into his musical influence from a very young age. From his early days with Los Skarnales, times performing with The Octanes, or years touring with Billy Joe Shaver, Gaitan has played with some of the best in the state and region. With a musical resume like this, it’s hard to corner his playing or style into one genre. This “Gulf Coast gumbo — a mix of roots rock, swamp pop, blues and Tex-Mex Conjunto”, as described by Jim Beal Jr. of The San Antonio Express, is reflected in Gaitan’s original recordings. His Houston-based band “The Umbrella Man” recorded their self-titled album in 2009 and “Bridges and Bayous” in 2012. A mainstay on the Houston Music scene Since 1999, he has since performed on stages across the USA, Mexico, Canada, Europe, Australia, and South America. Still, as the road goes on forever, something in the song or the sound always brings it back to his hometown of Houston, TX. Nick Gaitan is currently on tour with Rock n’ Roll singer Nikki Hill.
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