Alfred University offering summer BIPOC artist residency program
The Alfred University School of Art and Design is sponsoring a residency program that will provide visiting artists of color opportunities to dive into their artistic research and practice, and creative artistic endeavors within the SoAD and Division of Performing Arts studios.
The Alfred Summer Arts BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) Artist-in-Residence Program will be held as part of the Alfred Summer Arts program in 2023. Visiting artists Yikui (Coy) Gu and Lola Ayisha Ogbara will demonstrate their art at the Cohen Studio on Main Street and at the Ceramic Arts studio in Harder Hall.
Gu, whose residency will be from June 26-July 21, was born in 1983 in Nantong, China and emigrated to the United States at the age of seven, growing up in Albany, NY. He has a BFA from Long Island University and an MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
He has exhibited his work nationally in New York, Miami, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Boston, and St. Louis; and internationally in London, Berlin, and Siena, Italy. He has been an artist in residence at the School of Visual Arts, and has lectured at Tyler School of Art, Gettysburg College, and Fontbonne University. He has been reviewed in Hyperallergic, the Washington Post, KunstForum International, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Denver Art Review, and the Yale Daily News. His work has appeared on the cover of the Lower East Side Review, and in Fresh Paint and Art Maze. His work is held in the permanent collections of the Siena Art Institute, Wheaton College, Camden County College, and numerous private collections.
Gu resides in Philadelphia and is Associate Professor of Art at the College of Southern Maryland. The bulk of his time is spent in the studio, where he is currently plotting his takeover of the international art world, while remaining mostly harmless.
Ogbara, who will visit July 2-22is an artist, curator and writer from Chicago, Illinois. Her practice explores the multifaceted implications and ramifications of being in regards to the Black experience. Ogbara works with clay as a material in order to emphasize a necessary fragility which symbolizes an essential contradiction implicit in empowerments. Sculpture, sound, and installation art is the praxis of Ogbara’s interdisciplinary practice. She holds a BA from Columbia College Chicago and an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis.
She has exhibited in art spaces across the country including The Luminary, Hyde Park Art Center, Mindy Solomon Gallery, and Kavi Gupta Gallery. She also received numerous fellowships and awards, including the Multicultural Fellowship sponsored by the NCECA 52nd Annual Conference, the Arts + Public Life and Center for the Study of Race, Politics & Culture Residency at the University of Chicago, the Coney Family Fund Award from the Chicago Artists Coalition, and the Chicago DCASE Esteemed Artist Award.
Ogbara is currently based in Chicago, Illinois.