Artpace San Antonio is happy to announce the selection of our Summer 2023 and Fall 2023 International Artists-in-Residence. Our Summer 2023 Guest Curator, Alejo Benedetti, Acting Curator of Contemporary Art at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, has selected: Xin Liu (London, England, UK), Michi Meko (Atlanta, Georgia), and Ryan Takaba (San Antonio, Texas).
Alejo told Artpace, “Ryan, Michi, and Xin each have beautiful practices that merge the vast, exterior world with the human and personal in ways that are striking, lyrical, and absolutely brimming with meaning. Selfishly I’m an enormous fan of each of their practices, and I’m beyond excited to see what they will do with two months in residence and the opportunity to dream big and experiment.”
The Summer 2023 Resident Artists had their preliminary visit to Artpace in January and will begin their residency on May 22, with a Welcome Dinner on Thursday, May 25, from 6–8pm. Their exhibitions will open to the public on Thursday, July 13, and will be on view until September 10, 2023.
Xin Liu (b. 1991, Xinjiang/China) is an artist and engineer. Xin graduated from MIT Media Lab with a Master’s degree in Media Arts and Sciences after her MFA from Rhode Island School of Design and a B.E from Tsinghua University in Beijing (Measurement, Control Technology, and Instrument). Xin creates experiences/experiments to take measurements in our personal, social, and technological spaces in a post-metaphysical world: between gravity and homeland, sorrow and the composition of tears, gene sequencing, and astrology. Her recent research and interest center around the verticality of space, extraterrestrial explorations, and cosmic metabolism. https://www.xinliu.art/
In the summer of 2015, Multidisciplinary artist Michi Meko almost drowned. Meko shares, “Inviting this life changing event’s influence into my studio practice, my recent paintings and sculptures focus on the African American experience of navigating public spaces while remaining buoyant within them.” Meko received a BFA in Painting from the University of North Alabama. Meko has exhibited widely, most recently holding solo exhibitions at Susan Inglett; New York, Kavi Gupta, Chicago; Galerie Myrtis, Baltimore, MD; Richmond Museum of Fine Art, Richmond, VA; and more. http://michimeko.com/
Ryan Takaba is a material artist whose sculptures, tableaux, and installations are centered around a study of scientific reason and the power of belief. His interest in materials as it pertains to science, exploration of process and duration, chance and unpredictability stems from his training and education in the ceramic discipline. Takaba earned an MFA in Ceramics from Kent State University and a BFA in Ceramics from the University of Hawai`i. https://www.ryantakaba.com/
From left to right: Alexandra Robinson, Sandra Brewster, and Alejandra Salinas and Aeron Bergman.
For Fall 2023, Guest Curator Missla Libsekal, independent curator, writer, and cultural producer, has selected: Sandra Brewster (Toronto, Canada), Aeron Bergman and Alejandra Salinas (Detroit, Michigan), and Alexandra Robinson (Austin, Texas).
The Fall 2023 Resident Artists will begin their residency on September 18, 2023 with a Welcome Dinner on Thursday, September 21, 2023. The exhibitions will open to the public on Thursday, November 9, and will be on view until January 7, 2024.
Sandra Brewster is a Canadian artist based in Toronto. Her work employs a range of media to engage concepts of movement that express an internal relationship with identity. Her work is grounded in people of the Caribbean diaspora, who maintain a relationship with back home. Born to Guyanese parents, she is interested in a sense of being that is multilayered, made up of a collision between geographies and temporalities. She expresses these complexities via the unfixed nature of her work’s materiality and presentation. Brewster has a BFA in Painting and Drawing from York University and a Master of Visual Studies (Studio) from the University of Toronto. Brewster’s work has been featured in exhibitions internationally. Recent locations include Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Montreal, Musée d’art de Rouyn-Noranda, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto, and more. https://sandrabrewster.com/
Aeron Bergman and Alejandra Salinas are an artist duo. Their multidisciplinary work ranges from media, performance, and more in a conceptually and socially engaged practice. They have lived in New York, Toronto, London, Barcelona, Gothenburg, Oslo, Seattle, Portland, and are currently living in Detroit. Bergman and Salinas have shown work internationally at institutions such as the 4th Athens Biennale; 1st Bergen Assembly Triennial; 2007 Turku Biennial; 1st Struer Tracks Sound Art Biennial; Steirischer Herbst 2013, Graz; Fundação de Serralves, Porto; Eastside Projects, Birmingham, UK; and more. https://www.alejandra-aeron.com/
Alexandra Robinson is a visual artist who uses coded language and symbols to explore ideas of identity and place. She grew up in the military with her immediate family, an intersection of her Mexican and Jewish heritages. Robinson was a child of worlds in which histories, language, and religion were repressed or traded for other identities, and it is these themes that continually inform her work. She received her MFA from the University of Cincinnati in Ohio and currently teaches at St. Edward’s University in Austin, where she is a Professor of Art. Robinson lives with her husband and two daughters shuttling from studio to rehearsal to practice. She has exhibited throughout the country and internationally, most recently at the Salina Art Center, Salina, Kansas; Charlotte Street Foundation, Kansas City, Missouri; The Contemporary Austin, Texas; and Women and Their Work, Austin, Texas. https://alexandrarobinsonart.com/home.html
