Artist Jamilla Okubo co-organizes a panel discussion about black women artists and the role these narratives play in the community, particularly in the greater metropolitan area. Stay after for networking. Space is limited, REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED.
Moderator and Panelist: Asha Elana Casey (IG: ashacaseystudio)
Panelists: Tyra Mitchell (IG: tyrathezombie), Mahari Chabwera (IG: mahathra), and Dani Smith (IG: dani__danee)
Due to popular demand for this program, we will be hosting this off-site at ALX Community, located one block away at 106 N Lee St; Alexandria, VA 22314.
Registration has closed for this event.
About the Panelists
Asha Elana Casey
Asha Elana Casey is a contemporary painter, mixed media artist, and arts educator. She began her artistic training at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington. Casey is a graduate of the Corcoran School of Art and Design at George Washington University and an Anderson’s Ranch residency recipient. She currently lives and works in D.C.
Tyra Mitchell
Tyra Mitchell is a visual artist born and raised in Washington. She has spent the previous 5 years living and working in New York City. She gained her start by interning and freelancing enough to eventually make a name for herself in the creative community in New York. Her photography work has been featured in various places, most notably Opening Ceremony, Refinery29, and W magazine. Tyra relocated back to her hometown to raise her family and create work that explores her upbringing in D.C. and the distinct culture that hails from it. Tyra is a strong believer in creating spaces for marginalized communities. Her latest venture, Art Mom Project, is an online platform that serves as a safe space for creative mothers to share their artwork and stories.
Mahari Chabwera
Born in D.C. in 1995, Mahari is an artist currently living and working in Richmond, Virginia. She received her bachelor’s of fine arts from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2017, and recently finished a residency at Vermont Studio Center and a Summer Space Grant at The Anderson Gallery. She’s currently making artwork about transcending the limitations of the body through the body. Her paintings and performances explore the balance of opposites like, spirit and body, history and myth, shadow and light, and power and femininity. The purpose of her work is to replace embedded traumas in our collective unconscious. She wants autonomy through self identifying what it means to be.
Dani Smith
Dani Smith is a painter, installation artist, and writer. She received a BFA at the California College of Arts in San Francisco and an MFA at George Washington University. In 2016, she was selected as a Post Grad Resident at the Torpedo Factory Art Center, where she continued her practice and conducted workshops focused on empowering young women. Her studio process examines select facets of blackness as she discovers new boundaries of her identity and the social arenas it occupies. She investigates the feeling of being neither here nor there, belonging but displaced, being black, being white, French Creole, female, a fetish, a threat, a dream, a reality, an ideal, a hybrid, a sellout, suburban, the little yellow girl, high yellow, whitewashed, minority, mixed, a mimic. She works through these categories to discover how they are embraced or rejected as well as reveal an overlap between medium and social politics.
About Jamilla Okubo
About Jamilla OkuboJamilla Okubo is a mixed-media artist. Washington, D.C. raised, Okubo earned her BFA in Integrated Design at Parsons School of Design. Her work has a consistent theme of exploring the intricacy of belonging to an American, Kenyan, and Trinidadian identity and aims to use her interdisciplinary concentration as a medium to address topics within her culture. Rotating between collage, painting, fashion design, and printmaking her work is heavily inspired by the art of storytelling through textiles and fashion.
Her work has been exhibited at Milk Gallery, Calabar Gallery, Weeksville Heritage Center, and the Dray Walk Gallery.
About ALX Community
Alexandria’s premier co-working community with a modern yet comfortable workspace, great amenities, and engaging programming. Every facet of ALX Community is designed to help you meet others and achieve your best!
