Deborah Grayson

Bio & Artist Statement

Using vernacular, ethnographic and medical photographs from the early 20th century as source material, Deborah Grayson examines historical archives to trace Black women’s life-stories.  

Moving between figuration and abstraction, the historical and the intergalactic, the spiritual and the profane, Grayson uses printmaking and drawing to re/animate the rich but neglected and sometimes quiet stories of Black women’s lives. 

In her work Grayson builds an archive of images and artifacts that reflect Black women’s experiences and expressions of love, desire, ambition, hunger, vulnerability, spirituality,  fear and joy. In particular, Grayson is interested in examining both quiet and silence as modes of Black women’s expressiveness and what they both reveal and protect about the inner lives of Black women in order to enable a more nuanced understanding of their lives. Ink, graphite, wood and paper are among the tools Grayson finds useful to do this creative and documentary work. 

Follow Deborah on Instagram! @deborahgrayson

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Megan Koeppel

Bio & Artist Statement

Megan Koeppel is a visual artist originally from Milwaukee, WI. Her recent work centers on the art and science of natural dye, contemporary textiles, and figurative painting. Koeppel is best known for her quilted works that incorporate dye techniques and stitched drawings of bodily imagery. She was selected to participate in the artist-in-residence program at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts from 2022-2023. Since participating in this residency she has been a Visual Artist Fellow at Civitella Raneri (Umbertide, Italy 2023), a Bresler Resident at VisArts Center (Rockville, MD 2023), received the annual Trawick Prize Emerging Artist Award (Bethesda, MD, 2023), and was a 2022 Janet & Walter Sondheim Finalist Prize finalist (Baltimore MD). She is currently an MFA candidate in the Craft/Material Studies Program at Virginia Commonwealth University. 

Artist Statement: 

Quilts are everyday examples of material culture that are rich with storytelling, emotional utility, and effort from the maker. Early on in my quilting practice I incorporated the figure as a nod toward the often underrecognized and unnamed labor within the history of American quilting. Today, I recognize this work using the art and science of natural dyes, figurative imagery, and careful research into my material’s origins. My recent works are often a combination of scrap fabric, raw wool, and drawing. Drafting figures that represent artists, depicted with soft bodies executed in one long couched line. No matter how long I work with fibers like cotton and silk, the strength and transparency of the materials surprise me. I utilize textile methods to create works that celebrate labor, the artist’s hand, color, and touch. 

Follow Megan on Instagram! @megankoeppel

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Ara Koh

Bio & Artist Statement

Ara Koh was born in Seoul, South Korea from a fashion designer mother, and an industrial designer father. She received her BFA in Ceramics and Glass from Hongik University, Seoul, South Korea in 2018, and was an exchange student at California State University, Long Beach in 2016. Ara graduated with an MFA in Ceramic Art at New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 2020. Her works are installations claiming space. The intensity of the labor, repetitiveness, and palliative obsessiveness manifested in her sculpture brings a fresh reveal to the ageless themes of body, architecture-shelter and landscape. 

Artist Statement: 

I speak Korean, English, and Clay. My studio practice is a form of translation. Working with clay is a vehicle for memory, honesty, reflection. I translate the invisible and the amorphous into something visible and solid. A balance between polarities; light and heavy, dense and loose, ephemeral, and concrete. 

There is room for awe and even for childhood trauma, fading or relived. My sculpture encapsulates the dialogue of internal memories and external landscapes. Making is reliving fading traumatic memory as a landscape painting.

 Landscape made in clay links to geologic time and metamorphosis. Questioning how architecture and landscape hold humanity, I think about my body contained in the spaces, my body as a container, and the space being contained in the larger body of humanity. Experiencing body and reasoning what that experience does is questioning self in relationship with space. 

 This body of work claims my position of authority; a space that is my own space. Physically imposing enough to envelop the viewer, intensity of the labor, repetitiveness, and palliative obsessiveness manifest as the understanding of the universe. It asks about my identity as an artist, a daughter, and a human in the most honest and genuine way. 

Follow Ara on Instagram! @araangelakoh

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Sasha-Loriene McClain

Bio & Artist Statement

Sasha-Loriene McClain is a Maryland based multidisciplinary artist whose work is informed by her inner-child healing journey and search for home. Born to Liberian immigrants, Sasha-Loriene explores mixed media figuration and collage to cultivate home independent of time, space, and location and actualize the intersection of storytelling and artmaking as a tool for African diasporic healing and empowerment. In doing so, Sasha-Loriene engages multiple channels in an effort to unpack ancestral memory, process loss and grief, and archive generational stories beyond practical use and word of mouth into contemporary works of art. 

Sasha-Loriene is a 2023 grant recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council and the Baltimore Office of Promotion and The Arts. She has participated in artist residencies in Maryland and exhibited in Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia, New York, Florida, and the United Kingdom. As the founder of Mahyue Studios, a community arts incubator centering healing, storytelling, and cultural exchange, and Black Girls Who Paint, a global movement supporting Black women and girl artists, Sasha-Loriene leverages her BA in Economics from University of Maryland: College Park and MPA in Public Management from American University to amplify her artistic voice and social-engagement on larger scales. 

 Artist Statement: 

My understanding of home beyond infrastructure deeply influences my art direction. As such, I center ‘play’ and ‘discovery’ to reconnect with my inner child, document my healing journey, and explore the potential of inner-child healing as a means to dismantle and reconstruct core beliefs that shape our existence. 

Currently, my practice explores what it means to cultivate home within myself through two overarching questions: (1) How have my childhood experiences left long-lasting impressions in adulthood and (2) How am I meeting the needs of my inner child today? To find these answers, I draw inspiration from practitioners including author Louise Hay’s “Mirror work” for self-love and healing, artist Laura Wheeler Waring’s journey in portraiture for approach through experience, and artist Romare Bearden’s exemplification of Black culture and imagery for emphasis of the past into the present. I utilize personal photographs, influential relationships, and art forms enjoyed during youth, such as collage and crochet, to reconnect with parts of myself that I disconnected from during adolescence into early adulthood. I also incorporate balloons to symbolize hope, dreams, and memories of passed loved ones that have impacted my life. In doing so, I honor individual evolution, contextualize the world around me, and express gratitude for lived experiences as a whole. 

My work primarily consists of paintings that utilize bold colors, textures, and compositions to emphasize the liberating nature of childhood expression. I share the stories of my inner child Mahyue, my childhood nickname for ‘girl’ and the symbol I incorporate as my signature, as well as those rooted in ancestral memories passed down through generations into each work. I engage various materials such as, acrylic and oil paints, pastels, found objects, thread/string, repurposed canvas, and paper, to mirror the inquisitive nature of children and offer an intimate exploration into childhood memories and their enduring impact on adult life. I deconstruct childhood wounds through an intuitive approach to portraiture, figuration, and abstraction to create works that evoke nostalgia and invite the audience to appreciate the small moments of joy in everyday life. 

As I cultivate home within myself, I heal and empower my inner child to run free within my offerings to others. I invite viewers to engage with their inner child and journey alongside me towards healing. In doing so, we contribute to collective healing and spark a communal reimagination of the world, leading to a more empathetic worldview and positive influence on future generations. 

Follow Sasha-Loriene on Instagram! @sashaloriene

Visit Sasha-Loriene's Website