ARTISTS OF TINTED CONNECTIONS

VO VO

Transdisiplinary Artist

Vo Vo (they/them) explores support strategies and models of community care within a post-traumatic social landscape, focusing on the resilience of BIPOC, LGBTQIA2S+, and disabled communities. They are editor of an internationally renowned publication, speaker, educator, curator, artist and musician who has exhibited and toured in Australia, Germany, Indonesia, The Netherlands, Singapore, Croatia, Mexico, Finland, Denmark, New Zealand, Vietnam, Sweden, Malaysia, and the States. In their transdisciplinary art, they work in textiles, embroidery, audio, video, weaving, and furniture building. Their installations seek to interrogate power dynamics, structural oppression, challenge histories and realities of imperialism, white supremacy and colonization.


SELECTED CV & BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Oregon Contemporary Artists' Biennial, Portland OR​, 2024.
Social Forms: Art As Global Citizenship, Converge 45 Biennial. Portland OR, 2023.
Weaving Data, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Portland OR, 2023.
Solo Exhibition, Things That Have To Do With Fire, Fuller Rosen Gallery, Portland, OR, 2021.

Artforum, Critics' Picks, 2021.

ROB LEWIS

Art director and multidisciplinary artist

Rob Lewis (he/him) is a Cincinnati, OH native/Creative/Artist living and working in Portland, OR. When he is not honing his skills as a art director for Kamp Grizzly, he is refining his craft and practice as an artist. He is also the Partner/Creative at Passport Project. Rob's work is distinctly from the eye of an observer whose goal is to remain receptive to all that is happening around him. Ultimately, he hopes to achieve freedom within his creative practice.


ROB'S HISTORY IN MAKING:


Nike, adidas, Sony, Apple Music, Netflix, Powerade, Cult Classic, adidas x IVY PARK, Coca-Cola, Last Heavy, Pyer Moss, Trillblazin, PNCA, Beats by Dre, Fisk Projects, Ren Quarterly, Outlet PDX, Masego, Deem Journal, Street Roots, Oregon Humanities Magazine, Fresh Selects, aja monet, Design Week Portland Journal, House of Gul/Flower Factory, The Changing Times Newspaper, esperanza spalding, Open Signal Fresh Paint Program, Independent Publishing Resource Center, Imagine Black, Psychic Hotline, NBA, Puma Basketball

LISA JARRETT

Interdisciplinary artist and educator

Lisa Jarrett (she/her) is an artist working in social and visual forms. Her intersectional practice considers the politics of difference within a variety of settings including: schools, landscapes, fictions, racial imaginaries, studios, communities, museums, galleries, walls, mountains, mirrors, floors, rivers, and prisms. She recently discovered that her primary medium is questions; the most urgent of which is: What will set you free?


She is co-founder/director of projects like KSMoCA (Dr MLK Jr School Museum of Contemporary Art); the Harriet Tubman Middle School Center for Expanded Curatorial Practice in NE Portland, OR; and Art 25: Art in the 25th Century.


Lisa exists and makes work within the African Diaspora. She lives in Portland, Oregon where she co-authors social practice projects and continues her 14+ year investigation into Black hair and its care in various forms. She is Associate Professor of Community and Context Arts at Portland State University's School of Art + Design where she teaches classes in Art + Social Practice.

CHRISTINE MILLER

Painter

Christine Miller (b. 1990, New York, NY, she/her) is a conceptual artist currently based in Portland, OR. With a background in Product Development and an extensive understanding of manufacturing processes, Miller's work focuses on the design intentionality of physical products, literature, and advertisements that have been used to dehumanize African Americans. Her art centers around racial stereotypes and histories, while simultaneously reframing cultural narratives. 

Pointedly exploring how anti-Black propaganda and stereotypes permeate American life, Miller sources and recontextualizes figurines, advertisements, written material, and other ephemera that overtly and covertly create and maintain anti-Blackness. Despite the deeply violent and sinister nature of these objects and visuals, Miller often draws from those with an "everyday" quality - once readily available tchotchkes, drugstore products, and popular magazines - that add to the material's impact. Through her work, Miller confronts and challenges white supremacist definitions and illustrations of Blackness, as well as her own identity formation. 

ORLANDO ALMANZA

Painter

Orlando Almanza (b.1989, Las Tunas, Cuba, he/him) pulls us into his dreamworld of memory, myth and loss with ethereal landscapes, portraits and storytelling. His stories take place in the natural world where figures are intertwined with plants, animals and light. The interconnectedness of his work points to the artist's deep dedication to nature, and the unique way it connects with myths and storytelling across cultures. Each painting invites us in, to search for meaning and truth. Almanza received his B.A. in printmaking from the Institute of Superior Arts in Havana, Cuba. 

 

In 2022, Almanza presented a solo exhibition titled “Born by the River'' at Soapbox Arts Gallery in Burlington, Vermont as well as a solo exhibition titled “Un Laberinto en el Estómago de un Cocodrilo” (A labyrinth in the stomach of a crocodile)  at ONA Galeria in Havana, Cuba. These exhibitions focused on the myths from the artist's childhood, growing up in the Cuban countryside. Recent honors include an Artist Residency at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology and the addition of one of Almanza’s works to The Hood Museum at Dartmouth College collection. He currently works and resides in Portland, OR and Havana, Cuba. 

JUDY COOKE

Painter

Judy Cooke (she/her) has been exploring abstract imagery and the structure of painting for over 40 years. With a strong understanding of and connection to the genres of geometric abstraction and abstract expressionism, Cooke explores the space between paintings and sculpture, examining the physical nature of the work. Cooke majored in printmaking at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She received her BFA at Tufts University (Medford, MA) and a MAT at Reed College (Portland, OR). She has exhibited extensively, including a retrospective at the Art Gym at Marylhurst University (Marylhurst, OR), and exhibitions at Portland Art Museum (Portland, OR), and Tacoma Art Museum (Tacoma, WA). She has been the recipient of numerous prestigious grants, including the Flintridge Foundation Award for Visual Art (Pasadena, CA), Regional Arts & Culture Council Visual Artist Fellowship Grant (Portland, OR), Oregon Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship in Painting (Salem, OR) and the National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist Fellowship. Her work is included in the collections of the Portland Art Museum (Portland, OR), Tacoma Art Museum (Tacoma, WA), School of the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, MA), and Boise Art Museum (Boise, ID), among many others.

SIDONY O'NEAL

Conceptual artist

sidony o’neal (all/any) is a conceptual artist and writer whose rigorous and thoughtful research informs the development of their artworks. 

Focusing on post-digital and synthetic methods of making, o’neal works with ideas and techniques found in translation, mathematics, and computing. Their engagement with fabricators and other industrial workstreams to realize works challenges regional conversations on the production of contemporary art, including connections to histories of craft, the athletic industry, and aligned creative commerce associated with the Pacific Northwest.


Says o’neal: “I am especially interested in connections between the development of mathematics/math systems and the shifting relationships to earth systems, inheritance, and domination that have shaped interface experiences bound to human time. I consider research to be a vital material in the realization of works.”


o’neal’s work has been presented with Veronica Project Space, Seattle, WA; SculptureCenter, New York, and Fourteen30 Contemporary, Portland, OR, among other venues. Performances as a part of non-band DT have been presented with Kunstverein Düsseldorf, Volksbühne Berlin, and Performance Space New York. o’neal is a co-founder of INFANT design company. ENCHIRIDION: aisle, spline, resort, o’neal’s first major solo exhibition in North America, was presented at Portland Institute for Contemporary Art in 2022. The following year, exhibitions at NADA New York, and at Dracula’s Revenge, New York, were reviewed by the New York Times. o’neal is a 2022-2023 Hodder Fellow at the Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton University.