Exhibiting Artists

Simon Benjamin is a New York-based Jamaican filmmaker and visual artist.

His most recent projects are a solo exhibition at NLS Kingston in Jamaica, a group show at The Nordic Light in Stockholm, Sweden, and a commission by Tiffany & Co. to create several large installations for a private showroom at their flagship store. His current work explores urban beaches and their place in community. Simon is the Director of COURTESY – a design and filmmaking studio based in Brooklyn. In 2007, Simon was awarded one of PRINT Magazine's New Visual Artists. 

He teaches Motion Design at his alma mater, School of Visual Art in New York City. 

Learn more about his story from his TED talk and follow his visual diary Brooklyn Beachouse.

The Gymnast & Other Positions is Jacqueline Bishop’s most recent book and has been awarded the 2016 OCM Bocas Award in Non-Fiction. She is also the author of the novel, The River’s Song; and two collections of poems, Fauna and Snapshots from Istanbul. Her non-fiction books are My Mother Who Is Me: Life Stories from Jamaican Women in New York and Writers Who Paint/Painters Who Write: Three Jamaican Artists.

An accomplished visual artist with exhibitions in Belgium, Morocco, Italy, USA and Jamaica, Ms. Bishop was a 2008-2009 Fulbright Fellow to Morocco, the 2009-2010 UNESCO/Fulbright Fellow, and is an Assistant Professor at New York University. In addition to the OCM Bocas Award, Bishop has received several additional awards, including: The Canute A. Brodhurst Prize for short story writing, A Fulbright year-long grant to Morocco, a UNESCO/Fulbright Fellowship to Paris, The Arthur Schomburg Award for Excellence in the Humanities from New York University, A James Michener Creative Writing Fellowship, as well as several awards from the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission.

Gerard H. Gaskin is a native of Trinidad and Tobago and has worked as a photographer for the last 22 years. His work is represented in the permanent collections at Duke University, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Museum of the City of New York and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Kameelah Janan Rasheed (b. 1985) is an artist-archivist based in Brooklyn, NY. Originally from East Palo Alto, CA with brief stints in Johannesburg, South Africa, Kameelah's interdisciplinary and research ­intensive practice considers ideas of selective legibility and opaqueness as a political strategy; the tension between narrative contingencies and narrative resolutions; as well as black traditions of covert literacies and self-publishing.

Until September 2016, she will be a Keyholder Resident at the Lower East Side Printshop. She is also a recipient of the Triple Canopy's 2015 NYPL Labs Commission where she is conducting archival research on early 20th-century Black religious movements through NYPL's expansive archive. For the 2016-2017 season, she will be an artist in residence at Smack Mellon in DUMBO as well as on the faculty at SVA in New York City. In September, she will participate in the Creative Exchange Lab at the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art. Upon her return, she will be preparing for several shows opening in New York and Boston in the fall of 2016 and winter of 2017. She has exhibited her work at Studio Museum in Harlem, Bronx Museum, Queens Museum, BRIC Art Gallery, Weeksville Heritage Museum, Smack Mellon Gallery, Vox Populi Gallery, TOPAZ Arts, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The Leroy Neiman Gallery, etc. Her long form interviews and essays have been published in The New Inquiry, Gawker, The Guardian, Creative Time Reports and featured on the Creative Time Funk, God, Jazz, and Medicine: Black Radical Brooklyn's radio station, Otabenga Jones & Associates (OJAK Radio). 

Currently, she is the Arts Editor for SPOOK Magazine and a contributing editor at The New Inquiry. 

Karina Puente is a Mexican- American fine artist based in Philadelphia, PA and has been represented by galleries in California since she was sixteen. Puente is a painter and installation artist with a primary focus on making large scale Papel Picado backdrops. Her paintings are collected privately around the world and have been shown in museums such as the Corcoran National Gallery, the Miami MoCA, and the Elverhoj Museum of History and Art.

For her creative work, Puente travels extensively to install her hand crafted art on-sight at events, weddings, and workshops. She speaks publicly about what keeps her ignited and how to cultivate creativity.

Nontsikelelo Mutiti is an interdisciplinary artist and educator whose work encompasses ine art, design, and social practice. Born in Zimbabwe, Mutiti holds a diploma in multimedia art from the Zimbabwe Institute of Vigital Arts, and an MFA from the Yale School of Art, with a concentration in graphic design. Recently, she was a resident artist at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, as well as Recess and the Centre for Book Arts, both in New York City. In 2015, Mutiti was awarded the Joan Mitchell Foundation Emerging Artist Grant in its inaugural year. Mutiti continues to develop her work around African hair braiding and themes related to African immigration.

She is currently Assistant Professor in the New Media Department at State University of New York, Purchase College. She lives and works in New York City.

Vaimoana (Moana) Niumeitolu is an Artist (Painter/Muralist, Poet, Singer and Actress) and Educator. She was born in Nuku’alofa, Tonga; raised in Hawa’ii and Utah.  She is the founder of Mahina Movement, an all woman music and poetry trio. 

Kyle Goen is an Artist Painter, Printmaker and Graphic Designer. Kyle Goen’s work is exhibited nationally and internationally in galleries and on street corners. He recently collaborated with Vaimoana Niumeitolu in presenting work at the Smithsonian National Arts & Industries building in Washington D.C.  

Shirin Barghi is an Iranian multimedia journalist and filmmaker based in New York. Her work has been published in the Guardian, the Huffington Post, Souciant Magazine and the acclaimed book Beyond Zucotti Park: Freedom of Assembly and the Occupation of Public Space.