RESIDENCY PROFILES
2024
Bjarne Werner Sørensen
Supported by The Danish Art Foundation And the Knud Højgaards Fond
Bjarne Werner Sørensen, Warp, oil on canvas, 17.8” x 23.7”, 2022. Courtesy of Elizabeth Harris Gallery.
Bjarne Werner Sørensen will be in residence at EFA Studios from April through June. Sørensen’s work consists primarily of painting and prints exploring abstract formalist painting traditions. The works stress movement and contrast with gesturally applied colors and forms that make for energetic compositions. In June he will present his work at the Elizabeth Harris Gallery in New York City.
Sørensen was born in Denmark in 1960 and lives and works in Copenhagen. He graduated from Det Jyske Kunstakademi (The Jutland Art Academy) in Aarhus in 1985. He has exhibited widely in USA, Denmark and elsewhere and has been in artist residencies in Helsinki, Bergen, Paris, Berlin and New York (ISCP). He is a recipient of several grants and awards and his work is represented in numerous public collections and institutions, including The National Gallery of Denmark and The New Carlsberg Foundation.
2023
Bart Was Not Here / Kyaw Moe Khine
In Partnership with Artistic Freedom Initiative
Bart Was Not Here, Gods and Prophets on Strike, 2021, digital illustration.
We are pleased to welcome Bart Was Not Here to the studio program for a two-month residency. Kyaw Moe Khine (professionally known as Bart Was Not Here) is a Burmese artist in exile based in New York. Bart’s mediums span from working with large-scale canvases to figurines, sculptural installations, digital illustrations, and still expanding. He explores his art practice through world-building, anthropomorphism, and mythopoeia in a visual language that stemmed from curiosity and escapism–which were his ultimate tools to explore the outside world growing up in an isolated country of Burma. His cinematic compositions and gallows humor can be fully appreciated alongside a riddled commentary on witnessing the past, present, and future unfold simultaneously. Bart’s paintings and sculptures work deal with the themes of violence, worship, voyage, memory, and connection.
Growing up in Burma, an authoritarian country, Bart was frustrated by a corrupted school system, a strict religion, and the inability to assimilate into the conservative Burmese culture. Access to global art and culture through dial-up internet, international films, novels, and magazines found in Burmese bootleg markets provided him a lens to the alternative outside world. Since acquainting with graffiti at 13 years old, he started practicing under the moniker "Bart Was Not Here" to conceal his identity under the regime. Bart graduated from Lasalle College of the Arts as a Fine Arts major in 2018. In 2021, he had to leave his home country due to his involvement in the resistance against the military coup d’état. He was also an artist-in-residence at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, France for 2021-2022.
Vernando Reuben and Mark Anthony Wilson Jr
In Partnership with Calabar Gallery
EFA Studios is excited to welcome Vernando Reuben and Mark Anthony Wilson Jr. for six-week residencies that aim to advance their careers and broaden their exposure to New York art audiences. The residency was developed in collaboration with Calabar Gallery to support African diaspora artists. Nigerian-born curator Atim Annette Oton founded Calabar Gallery in Harlem in 2016 and has since opened spaces in Brooklyn and Midtown Manhattan.
Vernando Reuben is a Jamaican-born mixed media artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Working across multiple mediums, including video, Reuben’s work envisions a world full of hope and joy for Black queer people, where subjects are safe and free to be their authentic selves. Reuben’s background as a Jamaican immigrant is reflected in his bold and explorative use of color, texture, and materiality, and through his portrayal of queer African and Caribbean men as divinely powerful and sensual beings. For his collages, Reuben assembles fragments of painted, printed, cut, scratched and abraded paper. These disparate elements are manipulated and layered to achieve a cohesive narrative that has as much to do with the figures' navigation of desire and interconnectivity as it does with their movement through the refractive and dynamic cruising utopias surrounding them.
Reuben is a 2023 resident artist at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and has been featured in Jay-Z’s feature magazine Edition, as one of 12 artists to watch according to artist Nathaniel Mary Quinn. Reuben’s work has been exhibited at Bienvenu, Steinberg & J; NADA New York; Little Haiti Cultural Center; Prizm Art Fair in Miami Beach, as well as in black queer media spaces such as The Tenth Magazine. He is a former middle school social studies teacher with Teach For America in the Bronx and a Morehouse College graduate.
Mark Anthony Wilson Jr. is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist and activist. He uses assemblage to create utopian artifacts of liberation. Wilson’s practice marries Black and Indigenous cultural heritage with Afrofuturism. Inspired by the Indigenous Totem Poles in Washington state, he developed an identity in masquerade. Wilson’s masquerade serves to unify and empower Black bodies across time. Finding empowerment in historical moments of Black resilience to bear arms in self-defense and militant duties.
Mark Anthony Wilson Jr has exhibited at The Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Marc Straus, Jenkins Johnson, NoMüNoMü, Shenandoah Valley Art Center, Thought Pyramid Art Center, and Museum of Museums. He has had residencies at Worthless Studios, The Contemporary Arts Network, and Found Wonder Studios. He served as the co-facilitator for the 2023 Young Artist of Color Fellowship at FABnyc. Mark has been awarded by the Black Artist Fund, Seattle Arts & Culture, LAAMS NYC, and 757 Street Art.
Vernando Reuben, Two Dem Deh, 2023, 30" w x30" h, collage of scratched, printed paper, scratchboard paper, acrylic, and painted pumice on paper.
Mark Anthony Wilson Jr., The Ship That Carried The Hellfighters (detail), 2023, 60" x 27" x 28".
Hongyun He
Supported by Cultural Department of Munich City
Hongyun He, Blue Light, 2020, Chinesische Tusche, Mineralfarbe, Chemikalien und zerknittertes Xuan-Papier auf Holz, 31.5” x 23.6”.
We are pleased to welcome Hongyun He to the studio program for a two-month residency. Hongyun was born in Hunan, China, and is currently based in Munich, Germany. She will be exploring the New York scene and meeting with critics and other artists to share her work and perspective. Hongyun is a material-based artist who experiments with organic and chemical reagents to produce works of emergent complexity and rhythm. During her residency, she will be focusing on works on paper and will participate in Open Studios on October 12–14.
Or Zubalsky, Tega Brain and Sam Lavigne
In Partnership with Eyebeam
Tega Brain and Sam Lavigne, 2020, New York Apartment.
For 20 years Eyebeam has been at the forefront of supporting artists who create with technology. The partnership will provide studio space for three artists who often work digitally to explore installation ideas. Or Zubalsky has been developing a work that utilizes software structures as narrative devices for resistance and healing from settler colonialism, focusing on memory and trauma. Tega Brain and Sam Lavigne are working on an "Offset" project focusing on artistic research into emerging carbon markets. The aim of "Offset" is to create unconventional carbon offset mechanisms, installation works, and virtual outcomes that draw attention to and critique the existing carbon offset space.
Or Zubalsky is an artist and educator based in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn). Their work is compelled by curiosity regarding the ways in which the composition and execution of code manifest as political action, capable of both healing and resistance. With a commitment to unlearn and resist settler-colonialism, they engage the complexity that software-based systems afford in order to reflect on, criticize, and intervene in existing systems of power.
Sam Lavigne (b. 1981) is an artist and educator whose work deals with data, surveillance, cops, natural language processing, and automation. His work often takes the form of online interventions that surface the frequently opaque political and economic conditions that shape computational technologies. He has exhibited work at Lincoln Center, SFMOMA, Pioneer Works, DIS, Ars Electronica, the New Museum, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Tega Brain (b. 1982) is an Australian-born artist and environmental engineer whose work examines how technology shapes ecological relations. She has created wireless networks that respond to natural phenomena, systems for obfuscating fitness data, and an online smell-based dating service. Her work has been shown in the Vienna Biennale for Change, the Guangzhou Triennial, and in institutions like the Haus der Kulturen der Welt and the New Museum, among others.
Iliana Scheggia and Ramón Ostolaza
In Partnership with Expressiones
Ramon Ostolaza, paper sculptures.
Expressiones is a nonprofit organization based in New London CT that brings Latino and Hispanic artists to work in their studios, mount an exhibition, and teach in the local schools. Peruvian artists Iliana Scheggia and Ramón Ostolaza will be doing a week-long exchange at EFA to meet with curators and EFA artists.
Expressiones is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing the community with quality artistic programming. We celebrate diversity by inspiring the community to immerse themselves in the music, art, and customs of our multicultural population.
Expressiones main program is ArtVenture, which provides culturally competency, relevant and unique experiences, bilingual arts and educational programming for children in New London Public Schools, and in after-school sessions in New London. This program serves to bridge cultural gaps between the diverse communities in the area and to provide arts and other educational programs for children in New London, including a large and growing population from low-income families.
The population served includes among all of them the underserved Latino or Hispanic children in New London. We use the Artists-in-Residence recruited by Expressiones from Latin-America and other professionals. The residency programs offer resources to artists and provide opportunities for our diverse community to strengthen their ability to pursue lifelong learning.
Eliyahu Fatal
Supported by Artis
Eliyahu Fatal, Nine in the Dark, 2009, Installation view.
Eliyahu Fatal, born in 1974 in Israel (in his homeland known as Eli Petel), is a renowned interdisciplinary artist working in the field of conceptual art. In 2000, he graduated with honors from the Faculty of Arts at Bezalel Academy of Arts in Jerusalem, where he has been a lecturer since 2002. From 2011 to 2019, he served as head of the Art Department at his alma mater. Eliyahu Fatal's solo exhibitions were presented, among others, at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2007, 2006), Dvir Gallery (2009, 2003), Bat Yam Museum (2020), AJU, Los Angeles (2018) le guern gallery Warsaw (2021) Jasmin gallery kyoto (2023) . He has participated in many group exhibitions in Israel and abroad, including the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (2008), ICA Philadelphia (2011), Martin-Gropius-Bau (2005) and the Jewish Museum in Berlin (2009), the Haifa Museum of Art (2011, 2021). His works are in the collections of Tel-Aviv Museum, Israel Museum, Haifa Museum, Ashdod Museum, ORS collection, Leumi Bank collection, Hafenix collection, Paris City collection.
Summerworks
Supported by Art Hub Copenhagen
Print by Masar Sohail.
Four artists have been selected based on an open call by a jury panel consisting of curators Mai Dengsø and Stephanie Cristello, as well as Marie Braad Larsen, project manager and curator at Art Hub Copenhagen.
Summerworks is a partnership residency between Art Hub Copenhagen (AHC), The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts (EFA) and Bikuben Foundation Academic Guest House. During their stay in July, the artists will be provided with accommodation on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. They will have access to a shared studio at EFA, the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, various programs, workshops, and more.
Statements by the Jury:
Anna Ørberg's intersectional exploration of Monopoly's American facets aligns well with the residency. Her diverse artistic techniques, including etching, screen printing, and photogravure, enable an in-depth exploration of class issues like gentrification, intellectual theft, and economic inequality.
Julie Riis Andersen's exploration of print media and installation delves into the patterns, systems, and symbols of New York's 1960s and '70s art scene. Her visually poetic language blends pop cultural references with art historical mapping.
The juries were excited about Martha Hviid's approach to sound in the context of print, continuing her engagement with linear form and abstraction into adjacent media with local collaborators. Her interest in especially loops, warps and glitches fits both the media-based investigation as well as the infrastructure of New York.
Masar Sohail's conceptual film practice integrates lithography to challenge dominant political discourse and explore representations of masculinity, power, and desire. We are delighted to support their artistic research and unconventional, cross-disciplinary approach to printmaking through the Summerworks residency.
2022
Hinda Weiss
Supported by Artis
Hinda Weiss, After the Desert Goat, video still, 016
Hinda Weiss is a photographer and video artist based in Tel Aviv. Weiss holds an MFA from Columbia University and a BFA from the Midrasha School of Art. Her work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions, group exhibitions, and video screenings in venues such as Ludlow 38, NYC, and Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Weiss has received numerous awards, prizes, and scholarships, including the Artis exhibition fund, Outset Contemporary Art Fund Young International Artist Award, Ostrovsky family fund, Rabinovitz art fund, and Columbia University Dean's traveling grant.
Weiss’ works are compositions of landscapes charged with local histories and echo contemporary human existence. Using video and sound manipulation and digital adaptation techniques, she merges places and times into non-existing yet very familiar environments. In the exhibition space, her installations manifest cultural systems by emphasizing plural focal points, the simultaneity of events, and multiple aspects of time.
Summerworks
Supported by Art Hub Copenhagen
Bybliomoebick Mouseion, Stefan Bakmand, Resident Summerworks 2022. Photo: Luna Lund Jensen.
Summerworks is a month-long residency for four artists and one curator from Denmark supported by Art Hub Copenhagen and the Bikuben Foundation New York. The focus of Summerworks is on graphic work and print. As part of the residency, the curator, the four artists, and four artists selected from EFA’s own community of artists will present an exhibition at EFA in New York City.
The four artists were selected by a jury consisting of Mats Stjernstedt, Director of Malmö Kunsthall and Anne-Mette Schultz, artist and former Summerworks resident.
The jury’s statements:
Benjamin Savi is involved in printing as both an artist and a teacher. His work, which features themes such as counterculture and DIY, lends his practice depth and focus.
Stefan Bakmand’s application and practice reflect his interest in the medium of print and historical image production: for example, through themes such as alchemy.
Viktoria Wendel Skousen aims to portray plants in the New York Botanical Garden: a project that will make excellent use of the residency’s opportunities and involve experimenting with new methods in the EFA workshop.
Rebecca Krasnik’s work examines the technologies and methods that formed the foundation for the historical development of print and text. She is particularly interested in the relationship between the production of images and text.
The curator taking part in the residency was chosen by Art Hub for the following reasons:
In addition to her work as a curator – for example, at Rønnebæksholm and her projects at the Bizarro exhibition venue – Mai Dengsøe has extensive experience in the interpretation and presentation of various artistic practices, on the basis of an ecological, intergenerational and feminist perspective.
Christina Saj
In Partnership with the Ukrainian Artists and Allies League
EFA Studios supports a one-month residency for a Ukrainian visual artist in recognition of their commitment to the promotion of Ukrainian culture.
"As an artist versed in Ukrainian historical traditions, I aim to create work that will embrace these sensibilities more vividly. A delight in pattern and forms derived from traditional subjects have always driven my work, though often as an undertone. At the time of this unprecedented attack on Ukraine, as an American, I embrace the cause by exploring cultural armor and what that means.” Christina Saj
Christina Saj is a contemporary artist whose abstract paintings reveal a fascination with vivid color and rich pattern. Her distinctly recognizable style calls on modernist roots and an interest in materials. Unlike a lot of modern art, Saj’s work hails beauty to build her vocabulary. She is an iconographer of the future. Her colorful and playful paintings beckon the inner child while remaining in conversation with the old world traditions in which her work is steeped. The work offers the viewer a place of respite and visual joy. Her images allude to the tradition of sacred paintings, informed by her early training and work with Byzantine Iconographer, Petro Kholodny, the Younger, exposing her to ancient painting methods in egg tempera. Saj holds a BA in Painting from Sarah Lawrence, an MFA from Bard College, and studied Byzantine Art History at Oxford University.
2020
Nazanin Noroozi
Supported by Alwan for the Arts
Nazanin Noroozi works predominantly in the medium of printmaking, but also incorporates painting and alternative photography processes exploring new ways to represent the notions of collective memory, displacement and diaspora. Noroozi’s work has been widely exhibited in both Iran and the United States, including the Museum of Russian Art, Noyes Museum of Art, NY Live Arts, Prizm Art Fair, and Columbia University. She is the recipient of awards and fellowships from NYFA IAP program 2018, Mass MoCA Residency, North Adams, MA and Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts Residency, Ithaca, NY and the winner of “Selection of A New Generation” competition. She is an editor at large of Kaarnamaa, a Journal of Art History and Critcism. Noroozi completed her MFA in painting and drawing from Pratt Institute in 2015. Her works have been featured in various publications including Elephant Magazine, Financial Times, and Brooklyn Rail.
2019
Summerworks
Supported by Art Hub Copenhagen
In partnership with Art Hub Copenhagen and Bikubenfoundation’s Academic Guest House, The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts will host four Denmark-based artists in New York City for the month of July. The residency will include an individual apartment located on the Upper West Side and access to facilities and a shared studio at EFA in Midtown. The program will focus on specialty printmaking techniques available at the EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop and professional development resources offered by the Studio Program.
The artists have been chosen by a professional jury; Alexander Tovborg, Jasper Sebastian Sturup and Ann Sophie Stærk, for their professional work and individual skills.
ABOUT THE RESIDENTS
Wilfred Wagner
Wilfred has been selected on the base of his graphical abilities and capacity to work conceptually. The jury thinks that Wilfred will gain much from the residency in terms of new skills and the possibility to experiment with different techniques in the workshop.
Moa Alskog
Moa was selected by the jury due to her peculiar style and references to ancient Egyptian symbols and fables. The jury thinks that Moas playful universe would translate very well to the graphic felt.
Anne Louise Blicher
Anne Louise has been selected due to her ability to work with different color schemes and because of her strong imagery and language. The Jury thinks Anne Louise’s work would work particularly well as lithography.
Anne Mette Schultz
Anne Mette has been selected due to her playful and wide-ranging praxis. It is clear that she loves to experiment and incorporate new techniques. The jury thinks that Anne Mette will benefit greatly from a graphically orientated residency.
2018-2019
Arab Women Artist Residency
Supported by Edge of Arabia
Farah Al Qasimi in her studio at EFA
The EFA Studio Program in partnership with Edge of Arabia hosts a year-long residency for Arab Women Artists including Farah Al Qasimi, Ahaad Alamoudi and Afrah Al Dhaheri. Working from a dedicated studio in the acclaimed 90-studio arts building in Manhattan, the artists get to be part of a vibrant, cooperative community dedicated to fostering professional development and encouraging open exchange between artists, curators, critics, and the public.
The first EFA international partnership resident is Emirati artist and musician, Farah Al Qasimi. Her work locates the fantastic in the everyday and explores how consumer culture seduces people with promises of beauty or self-improvement. She is a recipient of The Aaron Siskind Foundation's 2018 Individual Photographer’s Fellowship and the 2018 NADA New York Artadia Award.
2017-2018
Residency for Endangered Artists - Syrian Artist Rashwan Abdelbaki
Supported by The Artist Protection Fund, Arte East, and The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts
Rashwan Abdelbaki, Artist Protection Fund Fellow and ArteEast Artist-in-Residence.
The Artist Protection Fund (APF) is a three-year pilot program at the Institute of International Education, sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The APF makes life-saving fellowship grants to threatened artists from any field of artistic endeavor, and places them at host universities and arts centers in safe countries where they can continue their work.
Since its beginnings as a New York-based programmer in Middle Eastern films, ArteEast has developed into an organization that advocates and supports Middle Eastern artists’ and arts organizations’ engagement with U.S.-based arts communities and audiences. By being responsive to the shifting needs and opportunities on the ground in the region, ArteEast has steadily evolved to become a valued U.S.-based partner for and supporter of artists working in the visual, literary and performance arts, while also expanding the U.S. cultural and philanthropic communities’ understanding of the challenges and opportunities of engaging with the MENA regional arts community.
2015
Middle East, North Africa and Turkey (MENAT) Regional Residency
Supported by Art Jameel and Edge Of Arabia
Husam Al-Sayed is a Palestinian filmmaker born and raised in Saudi Arabia. His practice is focused on the similarities and differences between individuals from different cultures and regions through the history and in present time. He investigates the traditions and habits of human through their creative and inventive achievements. Al-Sayed is a co-founder of Telfaz11 YouTube Channel. Since its conception in 2011, Telfaz11 network grew into over 7 million subscribers and over 7500,000,000 viewers across and over 10 YouTube shows. He previously worked as a commercial advertisement director, making ads for companies such as Nestle, Toyota, P&G, Unilever, Unicef, and others. Al-Sayed is constantly looking for visual and technical connections between the two wings of his practice. AlSayed is one of the few select filmmakers whose work was picked for the One Day on Earth movie. Al-Sayed obtained his B.A. in Digital Film & Television from Limkokwing University for Creative Technology, Malaysia. He currently lives and works in Saudi Arabia.
Salar Ansari (also known as: SALAR) is a Dubai-based Iranian multidisciplinary artist, electronic music composer and founding member of the Analog Room, a DJ and music platform in the Middle East with an international residency program for electronic music composers. Since launching in 2012, Analog Room has cultivated an extensive network of regional-grown electronic music composers and created awareness about the medium in the region.
Husam Al-Sayed, Filmmaker.
SALAR, Musician and composer.
2013
Maria Elvira Escallón
Supported by The Embassy of Colombia, Washington D.C.
Maria Elvira Escallón.
Maria Elvira Escallón was born in 1954 in London, UK, and she currently lives and works in Bogota, Colombia. Her work is developed around the relation between culture and nature, and construction and deconstruction. Most of the time, her projects take shape as sculptural interventions or installations in usually inaccessible places that the artist documents with photographs. These interventions can be very subtle and almost imperceptible, and sometimes they are the result of a repetitive action, which involves an intense physical part. Furthermore, since 2004 she has being working on a project that addresses the public health system, focusing on the state of neglect of public hospitals. Her work was been included in many art events in Colombia, and abroad, and she has received several awards. Since 2000 she’s been developing projects all around the world, and her work is shown internationally.
Website: http://mariaelviraescallon.org