About Us

Nela Garzón’s art is driven by her admiration of cultural diversity. Her work encompasses topics
such as colonialism, racism, and migration, presenting a juxtaposition and hybridity of cultures as a critical outcome of the ethnocentrism of dominant societies.

Often learning traditional techniques, which she adopts and modifies, Garzón researches folk art and handcrafts from around the globe and explores the effects of acculturation. Her goal is to create awareness about the importance of ancestral cultures and to promote pride in minorities, as well as an embracement of immigrants, refugees, and a pluricultural world.

Born in Bogotá, Colombia, Garzón holds a BVA from the Javeriana University. In Colombia, she exhibited at the 41 Salón Nacional de Artistas and 4to Salón de Arte Bidimensional. Her work has been shown around the U.S. and has been recognized through awards and grants, including a first-place award at the Assistance League of Houston’s Texas Show (2019), a LIFTS grant (2020), a commission by the MFAH for a temporary sculpture that was showcased in the Cullen Sculpture Garden (2022), a Jones Artist Award from the Houston
Endowment (2023), and a local residency at PAC. Her work is part of the West Collection and the Creixell Art Collection.

To learn more about Nela Garzón’s work, visit www.minkstereo.com.

Nela’s residency was generously sponsored in part by James & Molly Crownover.

Born in London, England, and raised in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Ann Johnson graduated from Prairie View A&M University in Texas, with a BS in home economics. She later earned an MA in humanities from the University of Houston-Clear Lake and an MFA from The Academy of Art University in San Francisco, with a concentration in printmaking. As a professor at Prairie View A&M, she has received the distinguished Presidents Faculty of the Year award and repeatedly been recognized as “Art Teacher of the Year.”

An interdisciplinary artist, Johnson has a passion for exploring issues, particularly within the Black community, which has led to engaging works such as The Hoop Dreamin Collection, a series that explores the social issue of a hoop dream. Her installation, Converse: Real Talk, has been exhibited in Texas, Missouri, and New York. She’s been an artist resident at the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, CA; at Project Row Houses in, Houston, TX; and at the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, ND. In 2013 and 2021, she exhibited in the Texas Biennial. She has been acknowledged as an “Artist to Watch” by the International Review of African American Art and was listed as one of the 10 most transformative artists of 2022 by Black Art in America.

To learn more about Ann Johnson’s work, visit https://www.solesisterart.com/home

Qiqing (pronounced Chi-Ching) Lin is a textile artist based in New York. She explores feminism, immigration, language, accessibility, and politics through materials and weaving. Her experience growing up and working as a journalist in China had a profound impact on her practice. Switching her medium from text to textiles, weaving has become her new language. Through spinning paper yarn and painting with threads, she looks into the complexities of family, mother-daughter relationship, class divides, and political depression.

Lin’s work takes the form of figurative tapestries, sculptural installation, writings, and social practice. She finds that being close to the material and a laboring of the body is essential: she spins her own yarn, dyes her own colors, and weaves on a hand loom. She graduated with a BA in journalism in 2014 and an MFA in textiles at Parsons School of Design in 2023.

To learn more about Qiquing Lin’s work, visit http://qlin.otherpeoplespixels.com/home.html

Felicia Francine Dean is an assistant professor in the College of Architecture & Design’s School of Interior Architecture at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.  Her creative work explores uncovering parallel approaches to reconciling space and place through the lens of her biracial experiences in her craft and design processes. The background she draws upon is based on growing up in South Florida and living in the Southern United States.

Dean’s approach navigates her discovery of latent material identities. Her work references the medium of textiles, physically or abstractly, to uncover new material narratives through digital and hand-making methods. She uses various media, including fabric, natural fibers, wood, metal, fiberglass, and stone. Her time at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft will focus on investigating and evaluating historical, overshot weaving patterns and unveil their codes as contemporary stories.

Dean holds an MFA in interior architecture, a BA in studio art, and an upholstery diploma. Her current project, Perceptions of Misconceptions: Intersecting Stone and Fabric Material Identities, is supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. The Windgate ITE residency; Marble Codes exhibit in Florence, Italy; and Interior Design Educators Council and Furniture Society conferences highlight some of her professional engagements.

To learn more about Felicia Francine Dean’s work, visit: https://www.feliciafrancine.com/

Originally from San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, Guadalupe Hernandez examines his cultural identity by reinterpreting childhood memories and family stories that connect to his past and offer greater meaning to his present. Hernandez creates elaborate works of cut paper that require thousands of cuts using a combination of blades, woodworking chisels, and leather punches to produce complex papel picado-inspired works. As a resident at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Hernandez plans to focus on the use of traditional tools and materials to push the scale of his work.

Hernandez earned his BFA and MFA from Houston Baptist University in 2021. He participated as a Changaritto artist-in-residence with the Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin, TX, which culminated in the acquisition of two of his works for their permanent collection. He also participated in the True North Sculpture Project located in the Houston Heights district of Houston, TX, and as an Artist on Site with the Asia Society Texas Center, where he explored the tradition of papel picado, creating a site-specific installation. Hernandez’s works have been exhibited at the Alexandria Museum of Art, Alexandria, LA; Beeville Art Museum, Beeville, TX; Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Houston, TX; the Holocaust Museum Houston, Houston, TX; and Wichita Falls Museum of Art, Wichita Falls, TX,  among other institutions and galleries nationwide.

To learn more about Guadalupe Hernandez’s work, visit: www.guadalupehernandezart.com

Ian Gerson (they/them) is a trans and queer interdisciplinary artist from Houston, TX. Working at the intersections of sculpture, installation, and community engagement, their recent work investigates climate injustices, trans consciousness, and personal and collective healing. Gerson is drawn to urban waterways and coastlines as in-between, ever-shifting spaces where impacts of climate crises are forced into high visibility. Weaving flimsy tapestries with ropes and plastic culled from Galveston Bay, dried plants, mylar, and clothing scraps, Gerson uses discards and detritus as a way of centering the refused, the invisible, and the marginal.

Gerson has shared their work throughout the U.S. and Mexico at venues such as BOX13, Galveston Artist Residency, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, The Bronx Museum, and Socrates Sculpture Park. Past residencies include those at Galveston Artist Residency, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, MacDowell, and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Swing Space. Their work has been supported by a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, a Foundation for Contemporary Art Grant, and a Public Art Grant from the City of Galveston. Gerson holds an MFA in sculpture and extended media from Virginia Commonwealth University and a BFA in studio art from UT Austin.

To learn more about Ian Gerson’s work, visit: https://iangerson-blog.tumblr.com/

Born in El Paso, Texas, Juan Carlos Escobedo explores his identity as a brown, Mexican-American queer male, raised in a low-socioeconomic community along the US/Mexico border. His work addresses residual class and race shame that arises from living in a predominantly white, structured United States that favors light-skinned individuals and middle-class-and-above socioeconomic classes.

Escobedo received his BFA from New Mexico State University and MFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. His work has been exhibited in San Antonio at Blue Star Contemporary, Centro de Artes, and The Southwest School of Art; in Boston at MassArt X SOWA; and in Darmstadt, Germany, at Darmstädter Sezession for The World Heritage Festival. His work has been recognized through awards and grants, including a Collective Futures Fund Grant from Tufts University Art Galleries, a consultancy at Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, an Actos de Confianza Grant from the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures, a Luminaria Artist Foundation Professional Development Grant, and a residency with Casa Lü in Mexico City, Mexico.

To learn more about Juan Carlos Escobedo’s work, visit: https://www.jce-art.com/