Artadia: Art & Dialogue

Antwaun Sargent is a writer and critic living and working in New York City. Recently he wrote “We Are More Than This,” an essay for the Tate Modern on the occasion of the museum’s exhibition, “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power” and is in conversation with filmmaker and artist Arthur Jafa in the Dallas Museum of Art’s “Truth: 24 frames per second” exhibition catalogue.His writing has appeared in the New Yorker and The New York Times. This summer he is co-curating the 2018 Aperture Summer Open.

Masud Ashley Olufani (MAO) is an Atlanta based actor and mixed media artist whose studio practice is rooted in the discipline of sculpture. He is a graduate of Arts High School in Newark, N.J., Morehouse College and The Savannah College of Art and Design where he earned an M.F.A. in sculpture in 2012. Masud has exhibited his work in group and solo shows in Atlanta, Georgia; New Orleans; Louisiana; Chicago, Illinois; Richmond, Virginia; Lacoste, France; and Hong Kong, China. The artist has completed residencies at The Vermont Studio Center; SCAD Alumni Artist in Residence in Savannah; The Hambidge Center for Arts and Sciences in Rabun, GA.; and Creative Currents in Portobello, Panama. He is a recipient of a 2015 Idea Capital Grant; a Southwest Airlines Art and Social Engagement grant; a recipient of 2015-16’ MOCA GA Working Artist Project Grant, and is a member of the 2014-15’ class of the Walthall Fellows. He has appeared in numerous television shows including Being Mary Jane, Devious Maids, Satisfaction, and, Nashville, and will be a featured actor in the feature film All Eyez on Me: The Tupac Shakur Story.

Multidisciplinary artist Michi Meko (b. 1974, Florence, Alabama) draws influence from Southern culture and contemporary urban. He has an uncanny ability to inspire an urbanized aesthetic that is innovative, challenging and thoughtful. The works allude to conditions both physical and psychological. His work is a proclamation of strength, perseverance and remembrance. He is represented by Alan Avery Art Company, Atlanta. Michi Meko lives and works in Atlanta.

Davion Alston (b.1992) lives and works in Atlanta, GA. He received his BFA in studio art with a focus in Photography as well as a Minor in Anthropology from Georgia State University. His work debates the idea of conflation between object and subject with deft investigations of race, gender, sexuality, class, and performance.

Artadia is a national non-profit organization that supports visual artists with unrestricted, merit-based awards and fosters connections to a network of opportunities. In the past 18 years, Artadia has awarded over $3 million to more than 300 artists throughout its participating award cities of Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco.