Artists Image Resource

Jefferson Pinder, Clayton Merrell, Ricardo Ruiz, Bill Fick, Alisha Wormsley, Patricia Bellan Gillen, Catherine Drabkin,

Jefferson Pinder: Interdisciplinary artist Jefferson Pinder gained national attention with the exhibition Frequency at The Studio Museum in Harlem in 2006. This show featured his Car Wash Meditations, a short video of a car rolling through a carwash to the music of Nas’ “Made You Look,” while explosive colors of soap manifest as action painting on the screen. The combination of sound and image is set against a profile of the artist seated in the car. In this and all his work, Pinder applies his knowledge of music, imagery, and performance to address complex issues of race, ethnicity, and class.

Alisha Wormsley: Alisha B Wormsley (Pittsburgh, PA, USA) is an interdisciplinary artist and cultural producer. Her work contributes to the imagining of the future of arts, science, and technology through the Black matriarchal lens, challenging contemporary views of modern American life through whichever medium she feels is the best form of expression. She is a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow in Fine Arts with longtime collaborator Li Harris, an Awardee of the Sundance Interdisciplinary grant, the Carol Brown Achievement award among others.

Clayton Merrell: Clayton Merrell grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, and Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela. He studied painting and printmaking at the Yale School of Art, where he earned an MFA in 1995. He was awarded a Fulbright Grant for research and creative work in Oaxaca, Mexico in 1996-97. His work is exhibited widely, with recent exhibitions at: Slow Gallery, Chicago; the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington DC; Concept Gallery, Pittsburgh PA; the A+D Gallery, Chicago; the Westmoreland Museum of Art, and the Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua NY.

Ricardo Ruiz: Ricardo Vicente Jose Ruiz maintains a multidisciplinary practice rooted in drawing in order to engage oral traditions of storytelling and superstition. Ricardo's work reflects on the ability of allegory to make connections within contemporary society and earlier cultures. The everyday rhythms of life are interpreted through images of unknown circumstances and a visual language of symbols. Ricardo extends a deep interest in personal memoir, ritual, and the difficult histories of North America. Engagement with the ascension and regression of civilization throughout history is a fixture within the artist’s work. His work motions towards a presence of wanderlust and ecstasy in a collective need to get lost. Ricardo was born in Corpus Christi, Texas and has exhibited throughout North America, France, and Germany.

Catherine Drabkin:  Before receiving an MFA in painting from Queens College/CUNY, Catherine Drabkin was immersed in printmaking, and has returned to the practice frequently as an offshoot of her career as a painter and educator. A founding instructor of the Delaware College of Art and Design, she has explored and exhibited both painting and printmaking locally and nationally. Her work has been supported by continued teaching, exhibitions, and numerous grants and fellowships.

William Fick: Bill Fick is a printmaker who lives and works in Durham, North Carolina. He is currently a Lecturing Fellow at Duke University in the Department of Art, Art History and Visual Studies. Over the past 25+ years he has exhibited his prints nationally and internationally and has taught at many institutions across the United States including the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill and Greensboro), Pratt Institute and Rutgers University. Fick’s work can be found in the collections of the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University; The New York Public Library and the Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University

Patricia Bellan Gillen: Patricia Bellan-Gillen lives and works in rural Western Pennsylvania. She recently retired from Carnegie Mellon University after 29 years as a professor in the School of Art where she held the Dorothy L. Stubnitz Endowed Chair in Art. The university honored her with the Ryan Award for Meritorious Teaching in 2000. Bellan-Gillen’s paintings, prints and drawings have been the focus of over 50 solo exhibitions including venues in Washington DC, Nashville, TN, Las Cruces, NM, Albany, NY, Bloomington, IL Portland, OR, Grand Rapids, MI, Wellington, NZ and Wimbledon/London, UK.