BRIC is proud to announce the 12 artists who are recipients of the 2019 Media Art Fellowship, which makes BRIC's Media Education courses, facilities, and resources available to professional Brooklyn-affiliated visual artists at no charge. The Fellowship is awarded to artists who have a strong desire to explore multimedia as a distinct medium or as part of an interdisciplinary approach to art-making, providing the technical skills to enact a creative vision. The 2019 Fellows are: Caroline Carlsmith, Cecile Chong, Dakota Gearhart, beck haberstroh, Maya Kaminishi Jeffereis, Felli Maynard, Wendell McShine, Jasmine Murrell, Cori Olinghouse, Whitney Ramage, Keisha Scarville, and Katherine Toukhy. Read more about their artistic practices below. 

Carlsmith.jpg

CAROLINE CARLSMITH is an American visual artist and writer currently living and working in New York City. Carlsmith completed her BFA in Studio Art and BA in Visual Critical Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2009, and her MFA in Art Theory & Practice at Northwestern University in 2014. Carlsmith has exhibited her work domestically and internationally, including at Flux Factory, Long Island City, NY; The Hills Esthetic Center, Chicago, IL; the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Evanston, IL, and Blue Star Contemporary, San Antonio, TX. She has been artist in residence at Residency 108, Clermont, NY; the Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT; ACRE, Steuben WI; SOMA, Mexico City, Mexico; and SÍM, Reykjavik, Iceland. She has been the recipient of numerous grants, including the CAAP Grant from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in the Arts Grant from Northwestern University, and is a founding board member of the interdisciplinary residency program Summer Forum for Inquiry + Exchange.

__________________________________________________________________________________

BRIC5-27-1543456 by Jason Wyche.jpg

CECILE CHONG is a multimedia artist working in painting, sculpture and installation in which she layers materials, identities and histories. Chong received an MFA from Parsons the New School for Design, an MA in education from Hunter College, and a BA in Studio Art from Queens College. She has had solo exhibitions at the BRIC Project Room, FiveMyles, Selena Gallery, all Brooklyn; Corridor Gallery, NY; ArtSPACE, New Haven, CT; and Emerson Gallery, Berlin. Group exhibitions include El Museo del Barrio, The Bronx Museum, CUE Art Foundation, all NY; Nevada Museum of Art; and the Cynthia Corbett Gallery, London. She has been awarded the Queens Arts Fund grant, NY; and the Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant, St. Paul, MN, among others, and her residencies include the Lower East Side Printshop’s Keyholder Residency, NY; The Center for Book Arts, NY; the Bronx Museum’s AIM program, NY; Wave Hill’s Winter Workspace, the Bronx, NY; The Studios at MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA; the Joan Mitchell Center Artist-in-Residence Program, New Orleans, LA.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Gearhart.jpg

DAKOTA GEARHART uses video, sound, performance, sculpture, and installation to examine the built environment and how it is perceived through technology and mythology. Gearhart received her BFA from Florida State University and her MFA from the University of Washington. She has had solo exhibitions at Disjecta Contemporary Art Center, Portland, OR; and Prairie Underground, Seattle, WA. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at The Bronx Museum of Art, NY; Tacoma Art Museum, WA; and the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA, among others. She has been awarded an NEA Fellowship through a partnership with Residency Unlimited, Brooklyn; a Puffin Foundation Grant, Teaneck, NJ; and an Artist Trust Grant for Artist Projects, Seattle, WA. She has completed residencies through NARS Foundation, Brooklyn; the Queens Museum Studio Program, Queens, NY; the Bronx Museum’s AIM Program, NY; The Wassiac Project, Wassaic, NY; and The Studios at MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA.

__________________________________________________________________________________

haberstrah.jpg

BECK HABERSTROH is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and facilitator based in Brooklyn. haberstroh received their BA in Visual Art from Brown University and is a co-founder of the nomadic learning community, Millennial Focus Group, and a performance residency called rehearsal. They’ve been included in group exhibitions at Small Editions, Brooklyn; the School for Poetic Computation, Babycastles, Bullet Space, all NY; Knockdown Center, Maspeth, NY; Flux Factory, Long Island City, NY; and the Wassaic Project, Wassaic, NY. haberstroh completed the Cuts and Burns residency at Outpost Artist Resources, Ridgewood, NY. They are the community manager at Genspace, the world's first community biology laboratory.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Jeffereis.jpg

MAYA KAMINISHI JEFFEREIS is a research-based artist whose work seeks alternatives to dominant narratives and shares stories of people who are marginalized. Jeffereis received a MFA from Hunter College, NY, and a BFA and BA from the University of Washington. She has had solo exhibitions at the New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT; and Arthub Asia, Shanghai, China. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at NARS Foundation, the Old Stone House & Washington Park, SOHO20 Gallery, all Brooklyn; the Queens Museum, NY; and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C. She has been an artist-in-residence with the NARS Foundation, Brooklyn; Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT; and Chashama’s chaNorth Artist Residency, White Plains, NY; and has recently been selected as an artist-in-residence at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Arts Center Residency on Governor’s Island, NY. She has received the Vermont Studio Center Grant, Johnson, VT; the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts Grant, Omaha, NE; and the Dick and Lois Haskayne Artist Award, Banff, Canada.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Maynard.jpg

FELLI MAYNARD is a Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist, student and educator. As a 1st generation Afrolatinx-American, their work uses photography to investigate and explore identity, gender, history and the black body. They are interested in the concept of rewriting history by means of their work. Maynard works mainly using analog photography techniques as well as incorporating installation and printed works into their series. They received their BFA from Brooklyn College, with a concentration in film photography. Maynard has participated in group exhibitions at Bushwick Open Studios, Brooklyn; Photoville, Brooklyn; Pen + Brush Gallery, Westbeth Gallery, both NY; Westchester Community College, NY; and MCLA Gallery 51, North Adams, MA. They are an artist-in-residence at Smack Mellon, Brooklyn; a teaching artist at P.S. 147 through NURTUREart’s artist teaching residency program, Brooklyn; and a teaching assistant at the Penumbra Foundation, NY. They also co-founded the artist advocacy community, Support Black Art.

__________________________________________________________________________________

McShine.jpg

WENDELL McSHINE was born in Trinidad and Tobago, lived in Mexico City for a number of years, and now lives and works in Brooklyn. His multidisciplinary practice stitches together illusive dreams, materials and media into forms of observation that creates unique visual languages of enigmatic imagery and discourse. He has been included in national and international group exhibitions at Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT; Art Basel Miami Beach, FL; the Museo del Arte Moderno, Mexico City, Mexico; Museo De Bellas Artes, Caracas, Venezuela; the Liverpool Biennial, UK; Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort, Netherlands. McShine has received the prestigious Belle Foundation Grant, San Jose, CA and has been an artist in residence at Bluecoat, Liverpool, UK. His experimental animated films have been screened in several international film festivals including the trinidad + tobago film festival, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago; and the Portobello Film Festival, London, UK.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Murelle.jpg

JASMINE MURRELL is a New York-based interdisciplinary artist born in Detroit, Michigan.  She has a BFA from Parsons School of Design and an MFA from Hunter College. The intention of her work is to articulate the black emotional and spiritual body within modern dilemma’s related to psychic and existential annihilation. She is deeply devoted to abstraction and has an interdisciplinary practice that encompasses the curating of objects and exhibitions, painting, sculpture, new media, photography, and sound. Murrell has had solo exhibitions at FiveMyles, Open Source Gallery, both Brooklyn; Casita Maria Gallery, NY; and George N’Namdi Art Gallery, Detroit, MI. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at the International Center of Photography, the Whitney Museum of American Art, both NY; the Bronx Museum, NY; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL, among others.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Olinghouse.jpg

CORI OLINGHOUSE is an interdisciplinary artist, archivist, and curator, who received her MA from Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT. Olinghouse danced for the Trisha Brown Dance Company for several years and participated in a dancing dialogue with Bill Irwin, researching a variety of movement forms that explore physical transformation including eccentric dance, clown, and voguing. Her practice explores gender as the shape-shifting of multiple perspectives—drawing from Lauren Berlant’s ideas of humor as a space for transformation. Her works have been commissioned by BRIC and the Brooklyn Museum of Art, both in Brooklyn; as well as Danspace Project, New York Live Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and Movement Research, all in NY. Olinghouse has also participated in Movement Research’s Artist-in-Residence program, NY. She is the founder and director of The Portal Project and serves as visiting faculty at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Ramage.jpg

WHITNEY RAMAGE is a cross-disciplinary visual artist. Ramage received her BA from Castleton University and her MFA from Pratt Institute. Her sculptures, performative videos, installations, photographs and drawings all deal with the human body and its relation to the world. Her work has been exhibited nationally in New York, Miami, Boston, and Vermont and she has been an artist in residence at The Studios at Mass MoCA, North Adams, MA and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Amherst, VA, among others. She also serves as the residency director for 77ART an art center in Rutland, VT that debuted its residency program in 2018.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Scarville.jpg

KEISHA SCARVILLE weaves together themes dealing with transformation and the unknown. Working across media, but with a grounding in photography, her work addresses issues of place, absence, and subjectivity. Scarville has a solo exhibition at Lesley Heller Gallery, NY and her work has been included in group exhibitions at The Brooklyn Museum of Art, BRIC, the Museum of Contemporary Diasporan Arts, all Brooklyn; the Studio Museum of Harlem, Rush Arts Gallery, the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, all NY; Aljira Center for Contemporary Art, Newark, NJ; and the Institute for Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, PA. She has participated in artist residencies through BRICworkspace, Brooklyn; Baxter Street at CCNY, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace program, both NY; the Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT; and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Madison, ME. Currently, Keisha is an adjunct faculty member at the International Center of Photography and Parsons School of Design.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Toukhy.jpg

KATHERINE TOUKHY is a Brooklyn-based visual artist who makes figurative cut-outs, installations, paintings, and social sculptures that are explorations of cyclical violence and transformation. Her place as a U.S.-born Egyptian woman of the Coptic diaspora has shaped the work she creates. Touky has been included in group exhibitions at Williamsburg Art and Historical Society, the Old Stone House, BRIC, all Brooklyn; and The Center for Book Arts, NY. She was invited by the Laundromat Project to co-present at Lincoln Center’s Rubenstein Auditorium and led the I Am For Freedoms project as part of BAM’s 50 State Initiative, Brooklyn. Toukhy was a BRICworkspace artist-in-residence; a feminist-in-residence at The Project for Empty Space, Newark, NJ; a Pollack-Krasner fellow at Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT; and completed the Artist in the Marketplace program at The Bronx Museum of the Arts, NY. She has received multiple grants from Brooklyn Arts Council, as well as from the Rema Hort Mann Foundation, NY; Alta Community Enrichment, Alta, UT; and the Puffin Foundation, Teaneck, NJ.

__________________________________________________________________________________

CLICK TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE BRIC MEDIA ARTS FELLOWSHIP >>

The 2019 BRIC Media Arts Fellowship is Sponsored by B&H Photo Video