About the Artists in Mighty Real Queer Detroit 2022
Tony Whitfield // @tonywhitfieldprojects
Tony Whitfield is a multi-media artist, designer and educator whose theater work has been shown by LaMaMa, ETC. His art and photographic works have been shown in solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums including the New York’s Museum of Art and Design, Leslie Lohman Museum of Lesbian and Gay Art, The Pop-Up Museum of Queer History, the Instituto Cultural Peruano Norteamericano in Lima, Peru, the LGBTQ Centre in Paris, and published in the US and abroad. His video installation, Paris, 1938, was featured in Paris’ NUIT BLANCHE 2017. Whitfield also writes about art, new media, film, performance and design.
Anthony Smith // @asmithjrnyc
Anthony Smith received a B.A. in Fine Arts from Amherst College (1999) and an M.F.A. in Painting from the University of Michigan (2001). He’s showed nationally in “From Here on Out” at Gallery Marzen/ IAG in Madison Wisconsin in 2020, the “Mid-Atlantic Painting 2016” exhibit at the University of Mary Washington Fredericksburg, VA in 2016; the 2010 “Sailing the Barbarous Coast” which traveled to Boston and Amherst, Ma and Milwaukee, Wi; and notably the 2008 “Runaway” show at the University of Texas Pan-American Gallery in McAllen TX for which he received a Puffin Foundation grant. In 2022 he will also exhibit in a solo show “Secret Worlds” at the Blair Academy in Blairstown, NJ. Additionally, he has received a Project Stream grant from the Pennsylvania Council for the Arts for the Pilot series of paintings exhibited in the show Dreadnaught at the ArtsQuest SteelStacks Center in Bethlehem, PA in 2018. Internationally he’s shown in the “Tribute to Michelangelo” show at CrisolArts Gallery in Barcelona, Spain in 2013, and in various Pennsylvania exhibitions including at the Bethlehem House Gallery in 2016, 2019 and 2022, and in “The New Normal” at Moravian University’s Payne Gallery in 2021. He’s been reviewed in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, The Detroit Free Press, The Ann Arbor News and the Artist’s Magazine. Smith has taught at such institutions as the University of Michigan, Parsons, Princeton and Maryland Institute College of Art. Additionally he served as artist-in-residence at the National Academy of Design (2006 – 2008), and at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT in 2016 and 2022. Most recently he’s taught at Muhlenberg College in Allentown Pa (2014- 2018) and currently teaches Drawing and Painting at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem, PA. He lives in Allentown Pa with a studio at the Banana Factory Art Center in Bethlehem, PA where he also serves as the artist-liaison for the residential artist program.
Brian Kovach // @brianskovach
Brian Kovach currently resides in Cleveland, OH. He is an adventurous person and exemplary photographer, a visual artist. Having just graduated from The University of Akron, Brian is ready to start working with other creative human beings who want to make an influence. His work examines identity as a cisgendered gay man and explores body positivity within the LGBTQ community.
Brian’s work has been exhibited locally in the 81st and 82nd Annual Juried Student Exhibition shows at the Emily Davis Gallery. His photographs also appeared in the 3rd Fine Art Photo Awards in 2016, under the conceptual and nude categories.
Darryl DeAngelo Terrell // @blkboyshine
My name is Darryl DeAngelo Terrell, I'm a Detroit Based artist who primarily works within lens based media (i.e. Photography, Video), performance, and writing. I am also a Curator, DJ, Organizer, and Educator. I received my Master of Fine Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where I studies with Xaviera Simmons, Ayanah Moor, Roberto Sifuentes Faheem Majeed. I work under the philosophy of F.U.B.U (This Shit Is For Us*). I'm always thinking about how my work can aid to a larger conversation about blackness, and it many intersectionalities. My work explores the displacement of black and brown people, femme identity, and strength, the black family structure, sexuality, gender, safe spaces for all black bodies, and personal stories, all while keeping in mind the accessibility of art.
I am a 2021 Black Rock Senegal Resident, 2021 Redbull House of Art Resident, 2019/2020 Document Detroit Fellow, 2019 Kresge Arts In Detroit Fellow of Visual Arts, 2019 Artist in Resident at Northeastern Illinois University, 2018 Luminarts Fellow in Visual Arts, 2017/18 Hatch Project Artist in Resident at Chicago Artist Coalition, 2017 Artist in Resident at ACRE, 2017 semifinalist for the Edes Fellowship. I have performed and exhibited work at The Museums of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA), Chicago IL, The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, Brooklyn, NYC NY, The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, IL, Xpace Cultural Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, The Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, TN, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in Scottsdale, AZ and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC.
Karianne Spens-Hanna // @karianne_artist
Detroit based artist, singer/songwriter, and art therapist, Karianne Spens-Hanna’s art and music examine the interconnections between humanity, the environment, and entropy. She uses judiciously selected palettes and her intuitive process to develop her work, resulting in organic, meditative imagery and sounds. Her work in the field of art therapy, and studies in psychology, ecology, anatomy, and physiology deeply inform her practice.
Spens-Hanna graduated with honors from College for Creative Studies, receiving a BFA specializing in painting, drawing, and sculpture. She received her M.Ed in Art Therapy with honors from Wayne State University.
TANNER BLACKWELL // @whatisatanner
KASPER RAY O’BRIEN // @kasper_ray
Kasper Ray O’Brien (b. 1992, Southgate, MI ; currently lives and works in Detroit, MI) uses both drawing and sculpture to consider the relationship between the body as a condensed expression of force and the potency of the fragment. By casting directly from his own body, Kasper confronts and engages with personal narratives involving sex, queerness, trauma and comfort. Through the concept of the mask, he contends with self-image, persona and performative anonymity. Kasper received his BFA from the College For Creative Studies, Detroit.
S. KAY YOUNG // @prunellascales
S. Kay Young (b. 1952) is a Detroit based artist, advocate, instructor, with a 44 year photographic career. A descendant of the Eastern Band Cherokee Nation, her work is in numerous private and corporate collections, including The Detroit Institute of Arts, The University of Michigan and Cobo Center (The Detroit Regional Convention Facility Authority) in Detroit.
S. Kay Young’s work is inspired by her love of, respect for and relationship with nature. Kay has a deep, personal reverence for trees. All her photographic series are initiated through messages she receives in dreams that come through her ancestors. Young has been given these detailed dreams since early childhood.
In 2014 Young and her Special Needs students were featured in and won an Emmy for PBS’s Detroit Performs series. In April 2019 Kay’s work was included in the curated exhibition Transformation at The Detroit Artist Market; the 106 ft X 155 ft installation was comprised of 98 self-portrait DNA images addressing identity and our DNA relationship to trees. The photographic installation reflected the quilts passed down by her mother and grandmother.
Young’s work has been shown in many solo and group exhibitions throughout her career. In addition, she has lectured at The Smithsonian’s National Museum for the American Indian in New York addressing the colonization of Native people in partnership with the American Indian Community House in New York City. She has curated and judged numerous art exhibitions in Detroit and is one of the principal curators of the upcoming 2021 exhibition/event "Mighty Real, Queer Detroit" spanning six Detroit galleries, including The Detroit Institute of Arts.
RICHARD LEWIS // @richardelewis4
Richard Lewis was born in Detroit in 1966. He started drawing when he was four. When he was 10, his godmother told him to study his family and go into the next room and draw. That started him looking at faces. He graduated from Cass Technical High School in 1985. He earned his B.F.A. from College for Creative Studies and his Master’s degree from Yale School of Art. He came back to Detroit, drove a cab and taught African American art history. He was an artist-in-residence at The Studio Museum in Harlem. He moved back home to Detroit in 2002 and was a Kresge Artist Fellow in 2011.
