Lolita Wilson is a Cleveland-based multidisciplinary artist dedicated to community healing and storytelling through public art. Her creative practice blends mural-making, mixed media, and social engagement, focusing on themes of memory, loss, and empowerment. Lolita is known for her role in transformative…

McKinley Wiley is a self-taught portrait artist based in his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio primarily working in the medium of photography. In 2019 he was the recipient of the Cleveland Arts Prize Verge Fellowship. His work has been shown in galleries such…

Falon Tripp is a 32-year-old artist, wife, and devoted mother whose journey with art began the moment she could hold a crayon. Rooted in a lifelong love for creative expression, her work radiates energy, emotion, and intention. Falon’s mission is simple yet…

Ellis Walker, 33, is a Cleveland-based artist whose work is rooted in imagination, emotion, and vivid storytelling. A loving father, devoted husband, and unwavering provider, Ellis has been drawing characters and crafting worlds since his grade school days. Deeply inspired by comics,…

I completed my BFA at The Cleveland Institute of Art in 2002 after being an Art Maker without the Degree for a Decade. My life has always been filled with Art making since childhood. I come from an Art Making Family. While…

James Negron (he/him) is a Latinx mixed media artist based in Cleveland, Ohio where he obtained his BFA in Sculpture and Expanded Media from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 2024. Throughout his time in undergraduate school, he developed a prominent interest…

Yasmeen Kwan is a ’26 undergraduate at the Cleveland Institute of Art studying for her BFA in Painting. Her work utilizes painting and ceramic sculpture to critique orientalism and appropriation of Black and East Asian culture in the Western world, cross-referencing history,…

Tanya Kaiser is a Cleveland-based interdisciplinary artist, curator, and arts advocate whose practice blends ceramics, sculpture, and installation with conceptual investigations of language, memory, and cultural identity. Her work examines the fragility of communication and the intersections between personal narrative and political…

Aja Joi Grant is a photographer, printmaker and fiber artist documenting black American stories and visions on afro-surrealism, spirituality, liberation and healing. She has shown work at Cleveland Print Room, Rooms to Let, Akron University, Worthington Yards & Cuyahoga Valley National Park…

Chester Hopkins-Bey is a multidisciplinary artist whose creative journey began in his childhood, making art since he was just five years old. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, and raised in nearby Cleveland Heights, his roots are deeply intertwined with the vibrant culture and…