Artist Bios
Daja do Rosario
A multidisciplinary artist of French, Caribbean, and Cape Verdean heritage, my work explores Afro-descendant identity, bodily memory, and the connection between nature, the sacred, and creation. My art blends textiles, performance photography, plant fiber sculpture, and painting. I weave, embroider, paint, and sculpt raffia on metal structures, creating masks, fractal spheres, or wearable adornments, which I then activate in self-portraits in natural settings. These fragile and organic works evoke intimate rituals where the body becomes a space of transmission, silence, and transformation. I thus question visibility, spirituality, and reappropriation through inherited and reinvented gestures. My work has been exhibited in France, Mexico, Japan, and New York. In 2025, I was invited to an artist residency in Brazil (MAC, Casa do Benin). I also lead workshops on weaving, textile creation, and upcycling, to share a practice rooted in life, listening, and resilience. Photo Credit @Isabelle LEGARES (aka Daja Do Rosario)
Marryam Moma
Atlanta-based artist Marryam Moma creates analog collages exploring the Black experience—celebrating the strength and joy of bodies while challenging societal perceptions. Drawing on her B.Arch from Temple's Tyler School, Moma uses architectural clarity to amplify marginalized voices through paper-cut collage. Her practice spans galleries to major public works: a mural for Clark Atlanta University's Student Innovation Lounge, the collaged sculpture Melanin Machina at the United Nations (2025), and ICONoclasts Atlanta, a building-wide installation for DASHBOARD, Atlanta, GA. Her work has been featured on the XXL cover, in the NAACP Image Award-winning New Brownies Book, and on TV in Black-ish, Finding Happy, Cherish The Day, and Bel-Air, and lives in the permanent collections of Google, Microsoft, Home Depot, and Starbucks. Moma is developing "Quilts in the Sky," a monumental permanent public art sculpture for the Atlanta BeltLine, slated for completion in 2026.
Amara Murphy
Amara Murphy is a black, queer photographer based out of Detroit, Michigan. She was born in Wuerzburg, Germany and is a 2025 Kresge Arts in Detroit Gilda Award winner. In 2022 she received her Associates in Science at Oakland Community College. In 2025 she received her Bachelors of Fine Arts in photography at Wayne State University. Her intersection between science and art is shown through her work. She gets inspiration from nature, creating pieces that preserve its transient state. She centers memories, her untraditional childhood, and community in her pieces. For her, photography has been a way to connect with history and the human experience. She has shown her work in various exhibitions around metro Detroit, including the Oloman Gallery, the Scarab Club, and the Detroit Artists Market.
Christian Noelle
Christian Noelle Charles (b. 1993, Syracuse, New York) is an interdisciplinary artist working between New York and Glasgow, Scotland. Her practice is an ongoing dialogue with the self, confronting internal landscapes of anxiety, memory, and becoming. As a Black woman bridging cultures, she interrogates belonging, self-worth, and the intersections of race, gender, and community. Her current work emphasizes the essentiality of rest and patience for meaningful transformation. Charles works primarily in printmaking, performance, and video. Printmaking serves as a solitary, meditative sanctuary for examining anxieties, while performance provides an intuitive, vulnerable exchange with audiences. These complementary mediums allow for distinct modes of self-discovery and liberation.
Holding an MFA from The Glasgow School of Art and a BFA from The Cooper Union, Charles has exhibited widely internationally. Notable solo exhibitions include WAIT A MINUTE?!! at Glasgow Print Studio (2025) and NURTURE | TURTLE PARK at Tramway (2024). She is a recipient of the Jerwood New Work Fund (2023) and has completed residencies in Athens, Greece and Johannesburg, South Africa. Her work is held in collections including the National Gallery of Scotland and the Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow.
Tafy LaPlanche
Tafy LaPlanche is a New York-based Afro-Latina artist whose vibrant portraits celebrate identity, culture, and individuality. Born to Puerto Rican and Haitian parents, she embraces the richness of dual heritage in her work, challenging the idea of fitting into a single box. Influenced by the murals of Spanish Harlem, her pieces blend realism with bold graphic patterns, saturated colors, and mixed media elements like gold accents and floral motifs. Tafy connects deeply with her subjects, using their stories and energy to shape each portrait’s emotion and background. Through her art, she aims to inspire others to embrace their full identity with pride.
Brianna Pippens
Bri Pippens is a multidisciplinary visual artist based in Silver Spring, Maryland. Working across illustration, digital art, punch needle, and public art, her practice explores themes of race, nostalgia, joy, and Black identity. Through bold color, expressive portraiture, and textured fiber techniques, Bri creates work that celebrates community, softness, and self-reflection. Her art has been featured in exhibitions, public installations, and brand collaborations throughout the DMV and beyond.
Michele Pierson
Michele Pierson (b. 1993, Philadelphia, PA) is an artist whose work illuminates the interdependent relationship between inner and outer space. Michele’s paintings of phantasmal landscapes, still life altars, interior spaces, and figures investigate the supernaturality of the human experience and its ability to be accessed through ritual, reflection, dreams, memory, and reverent observation. Driven by a deep curiosity to decolonize and personalize inherited thought frameworks such as religion, tradition, and cultural memory, Michele’s paintings seek to reframe these structures through an intimate, self-defined lens, offering the perspective that self-authored belief and individual interpretation can be both personally and collectively empowering and liberatory.
Michele earned her BA in Studio Art and Art History, magna cum laude, from Spelman College, with additional studies at the University of Ghana and Syracuse University in Florence, Italy. She has been awarded numerous fellowships and grants, including the Black Artist Fellowship (Mural Arts Philadelphia, 2024), Jar of Love Grant (ArtNoir x Sotheby’s, 2023), Forman Family Fellowship at The Alternative Art School (2023), Illuminate the Arts Grant (City of Philadelphia, 2021), and multiple residencies and fellowships with The Alternative Art School and Mural Arts Philadelphia. Her work has been exhibited in recent and upcoming exhibitions at Luster Gallery + Studio (Philadelphia, PA), Eckert Gallery (Millersville, PA), Abington Art Center (Jenkintown, PA), Ubuntu Gallery (Philadelphia, PA), Woman Made Gallery (Chicago, IL), and Miami Art Week.
Monica Tookes
Monica Tookes is a visionary artist and creative entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience whose bold abstract works transcend the canvas, captivating collectors, institutions, and design lovers around the world. A proud alumna of Spelman College, Monica seamlessly bridges fine art, business, and community, creating work that is both emotionally resonant and visually unforgettable. Her dynamic pieces have been exhibited nationwide and are held in prestigious private and celebrity collections, as well as notable American institutions and corporate offices. Known for a signature style that is vivid, richly textural, and unapologetically expressive, Monica brings magnetic energy to every project, engaging seasoned collectors and first time buyers alike.
In addition to her studio practice, Monica is sought after for her creative vision and direction across corporate initiatives and branded experiences. She translates her artistic language into visually dynamic brand storytelling, shaping immersive environments, campaigns, and events that elevate corporate identity with depth, cohesion, and bold design impact. Deeply committed to purpose driven work, she uses her platform to support youth initiatives and women centered organizations across the country. For private collectors, commercial curators, and lovers of bold design, Monica Tookes offers art that leaves a lasting impression well beyond the first glance.
Lynsey Weatherspoon
Lynsey Weatherspoon is a portrait and editorial photographer based in both Atlanta and Birmingham. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, USA Today, NPR, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Time, and ESPN. The fingerprint of heritage can be found on assignments and personal projects featuring Black Lives Matter, Gullah Geechee culture, unsung players in the Negro Baseball League, and the last of dying breed – a shoe cobbler. Her work has been exhibited at The African American Museum in Philadelphia, Chrysler Museum of Art, and Photoville NYC. She is an awardee, The Lit List, 2018. Her affiliations include Diversify Photo, Authority Collective, and Women Photograph.