About the Artists
The exhibition includes work by Dominic Chambers, Damon Davis, Jen Everett, De Nichols, and Katherine Simone Reynolds. Find more information about each artist below.
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Dominic Chambers is an artist from St. Louis, MO who creates large scale paintings and drawings that reference literary narratives cited in books he’s read, various mythologies, and African-American history. His current work is invested in exploring moments of contemplation and meditation through reading and leisure. Chambers has exhibited his work in both solo and group exhibitions regionally and internationally. Chambers also has been the curator of exhibitions at the Kravets Wehby Gallery in New York and the Pitch Project in Milwaukee,WI. He has also participated in a series of residencies including- The Yale Norfolk summer residency and the New York Studio Residency Program in Brooklyn, NY. Chambers received his BFA from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and received his MFA from the Yale University School of Art.
- Website: http://www.dominic-chambers.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chambersdominic
Damon Davis is an award-winning, post-disciplinary artist who works and resides in St. Louis, Missouri. In a practice that is part therapy, part social commentary, his work spans across a spectrum of creative mediums to tell stories exploring how identity is informed by power and mythology. Davis is a 2015 Firelight Media Fellow, a 2016 Sundance Music and Sound Design Lab Fellow, a 2017 TED Fellow 2017, and a 2017 Root100 Honoree. His work is featured in the permanent collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, and he has exhibited at Art Basel Miami, the Museum of Contemporary African Diaspora Arts and the San Diego Contemporary Museum of Art. Davis is an upcoming artist in residence at Betti Ono Gallery in Oakland and will be exhibiting at the Crenshaw Dairy Mart in Summer 2020.
- Website: https://heartacheandpaint.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/damondavis
Jen Everett is an artist from Southfield, Michigan, currently working in Saint Louis, Missouri. Broadly, she is interested in the myriad ways that Black people continue to produce and transmit knowledge. Her practice encompasses lens based media, installation and writing. Jen’s recent work considers the relationship between rupture and Black interiority through an investigation of the materials we collect, the information we hold in our bodies and where the two may converge.
Jen received an MFA from Washington University in Saint Louis where she was a Chancellor’s Graduate Fellow in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. Jen has shown at SPRING/BREAK Art Show New York, Leo Model Gallery at Hampshire College, Vox Populi – Philadelphia and Gallery 102 in Washington DC. She has presented her work during lectures at the Saint Louis Art Museum and Harvard University and her work has been published in Transition and SPOOK magazines. She has been an artist in residence at the Vermont Studio Center, Atlantic Center for the Arts and ACRE.
- Website: https://jeneverettart.com/home.html
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeneverettart/
De Nichols is a designer, social entrepreneur, and keynote lecturer who mobilizes young creative change makers through the production of interactive experiences, digital media, and social initiatives.
De is currently a Loeb Fellow of the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and she serves as Principal of Design & Social Practice at Civic Creatives, a design and strategy collective she founded in 2015 to help cities more boldly develop creative solutions for the civic and social challenges residents face. As a national keynote presenter and lecturer, De champions the power of design and storytelling to inspire and equip audiences to spark creative social change across their communities.
Because of her leadership, Nichols has been deemed as a national Ideas that Matter recipient, a two-time Clinton Global Initiative innovator, and a St. Louis Visionary for her community impact. She additionally is a 2017/18 Citizen Artist Fellow of the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts and a 2018 Artist Fellow with the Regional Arts Commission in St. Louis, MO
- Website: https://www.denichols.co/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/de_nichols/
Katherine Simóne Reynolds’ practice is working in emotional dialects and psychogeographies of Blackness within the “non”, and the importance of “anti-excellence”. Her work tries to physicalize emotions and experiences by constructing pieces that include portrait photography, video works, and choreography. In the process of making subtle changes to her practice she has learned that creating an environment built on intention brings the most disarming feelings to her work. Utilizing the Black body and her own personal narrative as a place of departure has made her question her own navigation of ownership, inclusion, and authenticity within a contemporary gaze. She draws inspiration from Black glamour, the Black athlete, and the Church. Her practice generally deals in Blackness from her own perspective and she continually searches for what it means to produce “Black work.”
She has exhibited work within many spaces and institutions around Saint Louis, including the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, Fort Gondo Compound for the Arts, and The Luminary. Internationally she was hired to work for ImPulsTanz, the largest contemporary dance festival in Europe, as the event photographer where she worked on photographic and performance projects within the MUMOK, the Weltmuseum, and many other unique venues around Vienna, Austria.
She has exhibited in local, national, and international group and solo shows, has spoken at The Contemporary Art Museum of Saint Louis and The Saint Louis Art Museum, and MoMA for their Gallery Sessions where she also performed. She has recently exhibited work in the In Practice group exhibition at The Sculpture center and Rule Gallery in Marfa, TX. She has also been appointed as the new curator at The Luminary a non-profit art institution in Saint Louis, MO. Her next exhibition is scheduled for October at the Knockdown Center in NY.
- Website: http://theunsuspended.com/