2021 Fellows - Mural Arts Philadelphia Mural Arts Philadelphia

We’re thrilled to announce the 2021 Cohort for Mural Arts’ Philadelphia Fellowship for Black Artists! Now in its second year, the Fellowship, presented by TD Bank, is supporting 20 artists with $2,000 each in unrestricted funding. Fellows will also receive Financial Planning sessions and social media promotion, as well as evaluative sessions with curators from HAHA Magazine, Rush Arts Philadelphia, and StreetsDept.com.

Stay tuned for weekly Cohort Spotlights on each of them throughout the year!

Meet the Artists

Caff Adeus

https://www.cvffvdeus.com/

In his somewhat simplistic yet playfully unapologetic approach, Caff Adeus’ work boldly says what a lot of artists wouldn’t dare express openly. His practice includes portrait photography, sculptures, and abstract paintings that explore Picasso’s dictum that anyone can learn to paint, but it takes a lifetime to paint like a child. Adeus’ pursuit incorporates commonality, antagonistic critiques of history, civil disparities, and political structures in aggressively condescending tones. Between mocking and challenging social constructs, he offers a front-row seat to a self-deprecating appraisal of himself as an art world outsider.

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Lindsay Bedford

Lindsay Bedford is a Spatial Storyteller, Communications Strategist, and an agent of change in her community. In June of 2021, Lindsay will graduate from Drexel University with a Master of Science in Interior Architecture & Design. Lindsay is passionate about the power of design and the opportunities it provides to spark change in our communities and society overall. This belief influenced her graduate thesis, where she explored the role of the museum in the 21st century and how design can be utilized to create a more equitable and culturally responsive art museum, specifically in an underserved community in Philadelphia.

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Amir “Amiracle” Campbell

Amir Campbell, also known as Amiracle, is a multi-faceted creative. His work revolves around displaced identity and unity through the lens of integration and assimilation into American Culture as an African American. Through his work, he communicates and forms relationships with his audience. Amiracle uses his subject matter to advance the opportunity to introduce them to the world of artistic expression and explain his views with a sincere hope to reach all who can connect with unity, oneness, and the perspective of exciting hope. His ultimate vision is to blend the worlds of fine art with street art.

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Robert Carter

https://www.rcarterphoto.com/

Robert is a full-time artist working mainly in photography, specializing in commercial portraiture and figurative fine art. Some of the thematic elements found throughout his work include rich colors and painterly light, impactful storytelling through imagery, and a commitment to portraying his subjects – especially those of BIPOC identity, in elevated, radiant, and expansive ways. In this way, he aspires to contribute to the larger narrative of who we are as people and how we show up in the world. Robert also has a background in music and writing as a vocalist and poet.

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Steven Cooper

Steven Cooper is an artist who specializes in photography, video, and graphic design. When creating art pieces, he takes his own photos from his archive and “enhances” them. Making them into true works of art from plain photos. Starting photography in late 2010, in 2017, Steven shifted into the art space participating in various shows around Philadelphia and other states.

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Taj DeVore-Bey

https://www.tajdevorebey.com/

Taj DeVore-Bey is a filmmaker from Philadelphia. Through his body of work, he aims to leave his viewers with a sense of perspective. He is inspired by directors such as Spike Lee, Terrence Malick, and Ava DuVernay. He is inspired by cinematographers such as Bradford Young, Emmanuel (Chivo) Lubezki, and Ernest Dickerson.

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Mikel Elam

https://mikel-elam.format.com/

Mikel Elam was born in Philadelphia. He attended the University of the Arts receiving his BFA in painting. He also attended the School of the Visual Arts in New York. He has been showing his paintings in numerous gallery spaces nationally and internationally for the last 25 years.

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Kenyssa Evans

https://www.kenyssaevans.com/

Kenyssa Evans is an interdisciplinary artist from Washington, DC, and now resides in Philadelphia. She received her BFA in Photography and Digital Arts with a minor in Curatorial Studies from Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia (‘20). Her work highlights spatial narratives that are both personal and universal through the lens of Black life, aesthetic, and imaginary. With the main use of imagery and materiality that are in constant metaphorical motion to our physical and digital reality, she set forth a visual social study of infinite and finite space through psychology and post-independent visual culture of Blackness.

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Anthony Folks

https://www.anthonyfolks.com/

Anthony Folks is a visual artist most known for his collage works on paper. He received his BFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) before completing his master’s degree program in Art Education at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). While at SAIC, Hip-Hop became a source of artistic research for pedagogy. As his collage work continues to evolve, he is currently inspired by Kuba Cloth patterns and designs. While volunteering at the Stoney Island Arts Bank – working with the Johnson Publishing Collection – Anthony co-curated collection objects aimed at refreshing the narratives surrounding African American history. His recent exhibitions include: CONNECT at South Shore Arts and the 2019 8th Annual Invitational Exhibition: Friends and Neighbors at AIRSPACE.

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Dāra Haskins

Dara Haskins (b.1992 Baltimore, MD) has rooted her practice in Philadelphia, working primarily in painting oil portraits and figurative oil and mixed media paintings. Addressing the ways the black body has been represented and looked at throughout history, she challenges the identity of being seen and unseen connecting historical content to contemporary spaces and how that relationship coexists. She is currently working on a series called Havana Time expressively from her own photographs of people she spent time within Cuba. Her large to small-scale paintings of objects, people, and places connect daily in domestic environments within the African diaspora. She is also working on a series called Quarantine Paintings that reflects on dealing with isolation, time, and opportunity during the pandemic of COVID-19. Haskins received her BFA at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2019. Winning the Artist of the Week from Rush Art Gallery (May 2020) and The J. Henry Scheidt Memorial Travel Scholarship to Cuba (2019). She currently lives and works in Philadelphia.

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Arthur Haywood

https://www.arthurhaywood.com/

Creating paintings to engage youth in reading is Arthur Haywood’s passion. His paintings are published in his book The Great Library and Space and Time Magazine. He has completed murals for Mural Arts and Elkins Park School. He received a Harriet Hale Woolley Scholarship at Fondation Des États-Unis in Paris, where he is currently working on murals for Lycée Paul Lapie, from October 2020 until June 2021. The murals depict diverse students looking into scenes from fantasy books to inspire them to read. The paintings will be displayed at the school in May and at Fondation Des États-Unis in June.

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Acori Honzo

Acori Honzo is a self-taught sculptor and painter. His influences range from Norman Rockwell to comic book artists like Alex Ross. His sculptures often refer to pop and mass culture. He sees this as a way to connect with anyone of any age using different mediums. He approaches a wide scale of subjects in a multi-layered way, likes to involve the viewer in a way that is sometimes physical, allowing them to add their perspective. His works directly respond to the surrounding environment and use everyday experiences, nostalgia, and moments in history from the artist as a starting point.

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Mz. Icar

https://mzicar.com/homeslice/

Mz. Icar is an anonymous interdisciplinary artist. Her name is a semordnilap and is a reversal of racism. Her colorful visual narratives celebrate Women, Global Blackness, and Play. She creates art in the form of murals, mixed-media, textile, and photography, often combining the mediums. Her work explores histories and imagines the best case scenario future from the perspective of women and people of color.

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Ken Johnston

http://ourwalktofreedom.com

Ken Johnston is a Philadelphia-based walking artist who responds to the call of social change and history by walking to put “movement” back in the civil rights movement. During the past year, Ken has retraced the footsteps of Harriet Tubman’s movements between known Underground Railroad communities from Maryland to New York. While raising awareness on the importance of protecting and preserving hard-earned civil rights, Ken works on building community through lantern-making engagement activities. He uses lanterns for shining light on issues to bring communities closer together. In 2018, he successfully completed a 400-mile solo walking journey across the Deep South for MLK50 from Selma, Alabama to Memphis, Tennessee visiting the many places Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. either worked, pastored, or led peaceful protests. Internationally, he has walked across Ireland symbolically linking its short-lived civil rights movement with the U.S. and across Puerto Rico on the second anniversary of Hurricane Maria following the trajectory of the devastating storm’s path. When Ken is not walking, he enjoys planning and creating public lantern events while researching his next adventure. His professional background is in career development and human services.

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Wit López

https://witlopez.com/

Wit López is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning multidisciplinary maker, performance artist, writer, and cultural advocate based in Philadelphia. They are the Founder and Artistic Director of Till Arts Project, a grassroots arts services organization serving LGBTQ+ artists in the Greater Philadelphia Area.

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Emilio Maldonado

Emilio Maldonado is an Afro-Caribbean artist living in Philadelphia. He graduated from Savannah College of Art and Design with an MFA in Painting (2013), from Escuela de Artes Plasticas de Puerto Rico with a BFA in Painting (2011), and from Altos de Chavon in the Dominican Republic with an AAS in Fine Arts and Illustration. He has been part of group and solo shows both locally and abroad, such as Vox Populi Make/shift (Philadelphia, PA, 2021), Breaking Arrow (Saint Louis, MO), Santo Domingo Museum of Modern Art Biennial, (Santo Domingo, DR, 2013), The New Kinds on the Block (San Juan, PR, 2011), and has attended Elsewhere Residency (Greensboro, NC) and Tiger Strikes Asteroid 2020.

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Rachael Moton

https://www.rachaelmoton.com/

Rachael Moton is a writer, director, and failed internet comedian. Her obsession with weird indie films and reality television led her to attend Temple University, where she graduated with a BFA degree in Film with a concentration in Directing. Her work has been supported by various organizations, including Sundance Institute, SFFILM, The Westridge Foundation, and The Gotham. As a storyteller, Rachael is passionate about sharing stories of marginalized people with the goal of promoting empathy, usually by utilizing comedy. If she wasn’t a filmmaker, Rachael believes she would’ve been a great reality tv star.

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Khalif Rivers

https://www.kriversphoto.com/

Philadelphia native Khalif Rivers is a self-taught photographer and writer interested in capturing the remnants of “Old Philadelphia” and uncovering its rich past. Driven by his love of the city’s unique industrial and residential architecture, he possesses an uncanny ability to evoke emotion from its landscapes that he amplifies through storytelling. His work resonates with both former and current residents alike.

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Andrea Walls

Andrea Walls is a multidisciplinary artist, informed and inspired by the writers and visual artists of the Harlem Renaissance and Black Arts Movement. She is pleased that her writing, scholarship, and visual art have been supported by organizations she admires, including the Leeway Foundation, VONA/Voices Workshops for Writers of Color; Hedgebrook Residencies for Women Authoring Change; The Colored Girls Museum; Writers Room at Drexel University; Studio Museum of Harlem; The Women’s Mobile Museum, and FabYouth Philly. She is the creator and curator of the interactive web experiences, The Museum of Black Joy, The D’Archive, and The Black Body Curve.

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Kelli S. Williams

http://kelliswilliams.com/

Kelli Williams is an animator, visual artist, and community artist based in Philadelphia, where she is an assistant professor at Moore College of Art & Design. In her personal work, she uses stop-motion animation, photography, installation, and humor to create work that comments on society through the lens of social media and technology. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally and has been featured in the Huffington Post, Columbus Live, Hyperallergic, Artnet, and Baltimore Magazine.

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Meet the Artists

Caff Adeus

Lindsay Bedford

Amir “Amiracle” Campbell

Robert Carter

Steven Cooper

Taj DeVore-Bey

Mikel Elam

Kenyssa Evans

Anthony Folks

Dāra Haskins

Arthur Haywood

Acori Honzo

Mz. Icar

Ken Johnston

Wit López

Emilio Maldonado

Rachael Moton

Khalif Rivers

Andrea Walls

Kelli S. Williams

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