2020 Mentorship for Teen Artists of Color Gallery
The Colorization Collective worked with TeenTix to present a mentorship program for teen artists of color as part of the 2020 (VIRTUAL) Teeny Awards. Teen artists in the program were paired with professional artists/mentors of color. We had two cohorts of visual artists, mentored by Perri Rhoden and Tatiana Garmendia, and one cohort of performing artists mentored by UJ Mangune.
Teens worked with their mentors and a cohort of peers to hone their craft and develop new work over a five-week period. This digital gallery is a culmination of the work created during this program. Enjoy these teens' incredible artwork below!
Visual Arts Cohort with Perri Rhoden
Evelynn Li (she/her) is a visual artist based in the Seattle area. Her passion for art developed at a young age. Her work is influenced primarily by societal issues and equity, and she loves to experiment with all styles, ranging from abstract to realism. She has primarily oil painted and sketched in the past, but has been expanding her palette and working in other mediums such as watercolor, gouache, and digital art. Check out her artist statement here.
Nya Spivey is a visual artist who mostly works with acrylic and mixed media. She is heavily inspired by what’s around her and what is happening in the world. She has been painting for about 4 years now. She first started painting because of an art teacher she had in 8th grade. She really enjoyed his class. She had always been creative but his class in particular made her realize how much she actually enjoyed painting. Other than the classes she has taken for school, she is self taught. Check out Nya's artist statement here.
Anna Wang (she/her) is an 18-year-old visual artist from Sammamish, Washington who goes to Eastlake High School. Her experiences as a child of immigrants growing up in an increasingly chaotic world have deeply influenced her work. Anna’s art explores themes of social and environmental justice, self-identity, and progress. The mediums she uses most often are oil and acrylic paint, graphite, colored pencil, and watercolor. Check out Anna's artist statement here.
Being immersed in the arts her whole life, Cleia Yuniardi (she/her) has explored the many things that she finds beautiful through a wide variety of mediums. Her artwork is mostly influenced by social justice issues and the Indonesian culture as they are very significant parts of her life. Cleia is most familiar with watercolor, acrylic, and colored pencils but is motivated to continue to explore new mediums. Check out Cleia's artist statement here.
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Mentor: Perri Rhoden. Perri was born in Tacoma and raised in Seattle, WA. She began studying art at Howard University in the District of Columbia. During that time she fell in love with figurative painting and celebrating her identity as a Black Woman on canvas. Since then her style has continued to evolve and she is now experimenting with various mixed mediums on canvas, wood, and plexi-glass. Currently, she is emerging in the public art sector as a muralist and further developing her business. Perri has both permanent and temporary art installations in Ballard, Downtown Seattle, and the Central District. More information about these projects, and her portfolio of work, is detailed on her website www.perrirhoden.com.
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Visual Arts Cohort with Tatiana Garmendia
Esha Potharaju is a fifteen-year-old from Mision San Jose High School who goes by she/her pronouns. She is a visual artist who creates warm, colorful pieces mainly focusing on character art. Her works are meant for members of Gen Z to feel seen and to bond. For this reason, bringing representation to all corners of our population, including South Asians like her, is a prevailing factor in her work. Check out Esha's artist statement here.
Meg Isohata is an artist who creates art that combines her Japanese cultural heritage and appreciation of Indian art. Meg creates unique pieces of fusion art the combine the delicate and subtle nature of Japanese ukiyo-e art and the bright, bold colors and patterns of madhubani art, an Indian folk-art originating from the state of Bihar. She creates these painting to celebrate the beauty and breadth of Asian cultures for an audience interested in a unique, multicultural experience. Check out Meg's artist statement here.
Kieu Anh Nguyen Le is a 17 year old artist from Vietnam, now living in California. She specializes in digital art and seeks to explore social relations through her work. She loves to find points of connection between visual art and writing. As an executive editor of Polyphony Lit, a literary magazine, she is an avid consumer of creative writing and finds much of her inspiration in parsing the writing of young authors. Check out Keiu Anh's artist statement here.
Izze Peña (she/her) is a 15-year-old sophomore who attends Kamiak High School. She is a Hispanic, neurodivergent, and punk multimedia artist that focuses on digital design. When she’s not drawing you can find her gardening, spoiling her dog Mozzi, or buying too many patches and pins. Check out Izze's artist statement here.
Linda Yan is a painter who creates imaginative, fantasy art for people looking for unique additions to their daily lives. She likes to incorporate themes and concepts relating to the Pacific Northwest and environmental conservation which has led her to work on graphic design for many environmental non-profits including the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, Washington. She works across a wide array of medias including digital, acrylic, graphite, and embroidery. Check out Linda's artist statement here.
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Mentor: Tatiana Garmendia. Tatiana was born in Cuba and immigrated to the USA as a youth. Her practice is figurative, conceiving of the body as the agent, the measure, and the sum of physical and cultural substance. She thinks this because her own body acts and is acted upon. It senses, remembers, and recounts, fashioning a report on lived experiences, committing memory to art. She has exhibited throughout the USA and abroad, and is in public collections in Seattle, New York, Washington D.C., Miami, Illinois, California, Ohio, and Santo Domingo.
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Performing Arts Cohort with UJ Mangune
Aislin Alancheril (she/her) is 17 and a Senior at Issaquah High School. She has been performing and studying classical music since the age of 9. She hopes to pursue studying classical vocal performance in her college years and as a career. She has been seen at Carnegie Hall and Benaroya Hall and is currently working with Seattle Opera’s Teen Vocal Studio. She enjoys writing songs and creating art in her free time.
Lauren Young (she/her) is a student from Connecticut. She likes to use creative writing as a way to reflect on personal observations and events that occur around the world. She prefers poetry, and when not writing, can be found listening to music, bullet journaling, or playing Sky: Children of the Light.
Lauren Young (she/her) is a student from Connecticut. She likes to use creative writing as a way to reflect on personal observations and events that occur around the world. She prefers poetry, and when not writing, can be found listening to music, bullet journaling, or playing Sky: Children of the Light.
Christina Li is a high school senior from New York. She enjoys using her writing to amplify the voices of underrepresented communities or to simply express her emotions. Aside from writing, she is passionate about history and theatre, is a big fan of dogs, and loves hanging out with the people she loves.
Meera Forespring is a seventeen year old two-spirit (pronouns are they/them) indigenous artist. They are a Cowlitz tribal member enrolled in the Running Start program and working towards a degree in bioengineering. They work with many different art mediums from vocal to visual art to express their passion of bringing awareness to issues affecting Indigenous and queer people. They wish to use their art to make strides in breaking the stigmas and stereotypes pushed by colonialism about their culture. Check out a video of their artistic process here.
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Mentor: UJ Mangune. UJ is a teaching and performing artist whose vision focuses on vulnerability, honesty, and sharing his experience as an American of color in this country. Recently awarded best choreography for "Head Over Heels" at Seattle's ArtsWest and fresh off tour as Graffiti Pete in "In The Heights," UJ originally began learning hip hop and street styles through YouTube when he moved from the greater Seattle area to a very rural high school. In the ten years since, he has directed, choreographed, and performed musicals in nationally-acclaimed theatre houses across the country, as well as choreographed and performed within the commercial realm at Amazon Prime, Google, and Macklemore.
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This project was supported, in part, by an award from 4Culture.
