And So We Begin

Jasmine Wilson is a writer and art critic from Atlanta, GA. She is currently pursuing her Master’s in African American Studies at Clark Atlanta University and is a participant in Stay Home Gallery’s Inaugural Curatorial Fellowship program. Jasmine is the founder of her blog POCKETBOOK, where she publishes weekly reflections on contemporary Black life and art. In recent posts, Jasmine has served as Youth and Family Programs Assistant at the High Museum of Art, Mellon Curatorial Fellow at the Studio Museum in Harlem, and Graduate Research Assistant for the AUC Art History and Curatorial Studies Collective. Her writings have appeared in Burlington Magazine, Sugarcane Magazine, Contemporary And, Abstractions Magazine and Black Women in Visual Art. Jasmine holds a BA in English from Howard University.

Magda Dumitrescu is from Atlanta, and won’t let you forget it. They use art both as an anthropological tool for documentation and as a way to create new folklore. Their work uses storytelling traditions from the American South and Eastern Europe to create solace and celebrate interconnectivity with everyday magic. Their practice focuses on color and movement, in murals, installations, collage, drawing, painting, animation, and video. Dumitrescu is an art educator and artist partner at Atlanta Contemporary.

King Barnes participated in the High Museum of Art’s Teen internship program in 2017. During this internship, he exhibited in group shows and was selected to represent the Museum at ICA in Boston alongside Dr.Fahamu Pecou. King worked for the Fulton County Council as an Arts Assistant under the direction of artist Michi Meko. In 2019, under the direction of Kristan Woolford, King was recognized as the APS Film and Video Student of the Year. King was awarded a scholarship that he used to purchase his first camera.
In the fall of 2019, King began studying film at Georgia Gwinnett College, however, due to COVID-19, he was forced to leave school and return home. Faced with the uncertainty and social unrest, he used his camera to document the Atlanta BLM protest which resulted in a collection of historic images and two self-published books “NIGHT OPPS’’ Vol.1 & 2

Photographer and Georgia native, Tokie Rome-Taylor focuses on the notion that perception of self and belonging begins in childhood. Children are the subjects she centers within her works, with a focus on representing a visual elevation that had been omitted from mainstream “western art history”. Her works have a painterly aesthetic, using both digital and analog image making techniques. She often incorporates multiple mediums, including embroidery, pigments, beading and wax. The resulting works challenge the viewer’s expectation of what a photograph should look like.

Working in tandem with her centering of children, Rome-Taylor explores questions that stem from ethnographic and historical research. These questions probe material, spiritual, and familial culture of descents of southern slaves act as entry points for Tokie Rome-Taylor to build symbolic elements that communicate a visual language. The sitters’ family heirlooms, and recollections of family history, are combined with the historical research about the lives of Africans brought to the Americas.The research centers on their material culture, spiritual practice, and traditions. These have all been used to create a visual language that speaks to our shared history. Children and their family heirlooms, the real or imagined histories of these children’s families and their ancestors all collide to spark conversation around material wealth, familial and cultural traditions of African Americans in the South.

Rome-Taylor’s work is held in multiple private and institutional collections including the MOCA GA, The Fralin Museum at UVA, and the Southeastern Museum of Photography. She has an extensive national and international exhibition record including the Atlanta Contemporary, the Fralin Museum, The Southeastern Museum of Photography, The Griffin Museum of Photography, SP-Foto SP-Arte Fair in São Paulo, Brazil, and the Zuckerman Museum of Art, amongst others.

Rome-Taylor is a native of Atlanta, 20+ year veteran educator and working artist.

I am Chanell Angelique Skyers, a mixed media artist of Caribbean descent residing in Atlanta, GA.
Through the use of natural materials such as metal and wood, I am focused on creating three dimensional pieces that channel the universe and touch the soul.
My heritage comes through strongly in my work, as I often work with tropical floral and images of people who remind me of my childhood.
There is an emotional soul tie between my poetry and art. Just as the words build on each other telling a story in my poetry, so does my use of mixed media in my art. At first, its all a puzzle in my mind and to convey the feeling and emotion is the goal. Whether I am pulling from the labyrinth of words in my mental cloud or the jungle of floral and images in my studio; selection is key. This is where and when I believe spirit and I co-create. Unlike many artists, I do not plan or sketch out my ideas beforehand. They are all spontaneous flurries of epiphanies pulled from the unseen spiritual world where thoughts and inspiration live and are then made manifest in the physical by way of art. The pieces just seems to just fall out of me through pen and pad or canvas and paint.