Current Studio Access Residents
Aaron Uzzle
Aaron Uzzle is a Virginia-born artist who has envisioned transcendental embodiments of Black identity for almost a decade. He began drawing at the age of five and decided to pursue art as a profession after graduating from high school. Uzzle’s dedication to the craft is unbounded, and his passion for art has evolved into a spiritual calling.
Uzzle was initially interested in drawing and painting, blending influences from the works of European Old and Modern Masters with Hip-Hop aesthetics. He became disillusioned with the lackluster depictions of Black representation in Western Art History. West African and Black Atlantic artistic traditions, including Hip-Hop culture, inform the current approach to his work. Uzzle seeks to create spiritual vessels that further contribute to these traditions, critique the exploitative, imperialist nature of the West, and explore the liminality of his existence.
Alexandra McGowan
Alexandra McGowan is a multimedia artist living in Richmond Virginia specializing in painting. Most of her work is abstract, taking inspiration from tender moments shared with her partner, and experiences with natural ephemera such as shifting shadows on pavement. Her paintings are created on stretched cotton bedsheets, which give them a soft surface texture, and allow the paintings to take in surrounding light. Alexandra’s use of bed sheets references her relationship with her bed as a symbol of rest, safety, and queer love.
Alexandra received a BFA in Painting and Printmaking, with a Minor in Art History from Virginia Commonwealth University. She has had work featured in Flat Rate Contemporary’s FRC19, and exhibited work at Second Street Gallery (Charlottesville, VA) VisArts Center (Rockville, MD) and Pamplemousse Gallery, Bond Millen Gallery, and The Material Room (Richmond, VA).
Instagram: @alexfromri
Cameron Weston Nicholson
(Preferably, I like to be called Weston)
I’ve been an artist since I knew what the word felt like. Diving into various mediums as I age I have clinged to a few that I can’t shake. Drawing will always be at the forefront of my identity as a human & artist. Classically trained in Media Arts & Animation, I’m learning to love pottery! My work & what I say will always express emotions I cling to as well. No matter the medium, you’ll be in awe to have a chance to think. My work speaks to many narratives but the Black American experience is a through line. Give yourself Grace.
@prof_weston (insta)
Jake Lahah
Jake Lahah (born in Wildwood, NJ, living and working in Richmond, VA) is an artist, researcher, and educator whose work examines topics on labor, queerness, and ecology. His work considers how visual culture and data are testimony of the human condition, through installation, print media, and craft making methodologies. He received his BFA from George Mason University (2017) and an MFA in Print from Tyler School of Art + Architecture at Temple University (2024). While at Temple University, he was a Project Completion Grant Fellow to aid in his research on the history of the palm tree as a symbol of utopia. Lahah is a Gay Cultural Studies Creative Research Grant recipient within the department Women and Gender Studies at Old Dominion University, where he recently created a body of work exploring the connections between the AIDS crisis and silica mining industries. Notable places Lahah has shown include: Bond Millen Gallery, Richmond, VA; ADA Gallery, Richmond, VA; Temple Contemporary, Philadelphia, PA; Vox Populi, Philadelphia, PA; IA&A at Hillyer, Washington, D.C.; ICA Baltimore, Baltimore, MD; and Skylab Gallery, Columbus, OH. He is currently an Assistant Adjunct Professor within the Foundations and Drawing/Painting Department at Old Dominion University.
Website: jakelahah.com
Instagram: @jakelaha
James Nunnally
James Nunnally is a ceramic artist based in Chester, Virginia, where he lives with his wife and four children. He first connected with clay in 1999 during his college years and has continued to return to the medium as a vital outlet for creativity and renewal. For James, the process of working with clay—its pushing, pulling, compressing, and reshaping—mirrors his own life journey, requiring balance, rhythm, and resilience. Alongside his career as a mental health provider, he pursues ceramics as a practice of self-expression, grounding, and community connection. His current focus is on wheel throwing, glaze experimentation, and kiln work, with a deep appreciation for texture, color, and the beauty of imperfection.
Jas Ramos
Jas Ramos (they/them) is a queer Puerto Rican transdisciplinary artist and educator born and raised in central Florida, now living and practicing in Richmond, Virginia. They received their MFA in studio art from the University of Florida in 2021 and their BA in studio art with a concentration in painting from Stetson University in 2017. Their work incorporates drawing, painting, hand-sewing, and most recently metalsmithing processes to consider the relationship between their queer and BIPOC identities, craft, and domestic space. Jas views their work as a way to connect with viewers in their community through shared experiences, values, and identities. They spend their time engaged in Richmond’s art community; teaching classes at the VisArts Center, participating in local makers and art markets, and spending time with their partner and two cats.
Keysha Rivera
Keysha Rivera (any pronouns) is a technologist, speculative designer, and poetic researcher of afro-indigenous (Taâino) ancestry who practices in the South. Keysha’s fusion of digital images, ancestral memory, and textiles is a type of visual storytelling and counter-archiving. Her work, rooted in the connection between material and process, creates sculptures, designs, and installations that explore the conversation around the vulnerability of land, the bodily connection to nature, and the tenderness of memory and remembrance.
Recognizing craft’s continually relevant and subversive nature, Keysha views its material language as an organic knowledge system and vehicle for healing, where craft becomes an expression of Puerto Rican and Indigenous autonomy and futurity. Keysha has an undergraduate degree in Biology and Graphic Design. She’s been a resident at Mass Moca, has been awarded a Craft Innovator Grant, and has participated in a show at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft.
Keysha is an auntie and loves the water.
Artist account is @hoodsensitive on IG
MarQuise Crockett
MarQuise Crockett (b.1995) is a self taught Richmond based photographer and aspiring filmmaker. His first memory of a camera was with his great grandmother’s disposable ones, and that started his obsession with capturing tangible moments. Forever a student MarQuise always uses his environments to inform his creativity. His work is rooted in desire, beauty, truth, and identity. Embracing the themes of the past, the haunting reality of our present and creating fictionalized moments of an imagined future.
Instagram @marquisecrckett
Niyah McGee-Hawkins
Niyah McGee-Hawkins is a Black digital and traditional artist from Richmond, Virginia. She began creating at a young age, but in 2023, began to push her creativity into a career. She furthered her skill and experience by joining art programs and residencies over the past few years. She mainly focuses on portrait illustrating, with developments in character design and storytelling. She often uses bright colors in her artwork, along with expressive shapes. She enjoys sharing her art process, and progression through short videos on social media. Her goal is to grow her online audience and make longer form content to connect with other art lovers.
Insta: @nm_dreamart
Oscar Campos-Valle
My name is Oscar Campos-Valle, and I’m a mixed media artist and recent graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, where I earned a BFA in Painting and Printmaking with minors in Craft/Material Studies and Art History. As a first-generation Hispanic American with family roots in El Salvador, my work is deeply influenced by personal experiences and cultural heritage. I explore the connections between two-dimensional and three-dimensional art forms, often blending materials and techniques to tell layered visual stories. Recently, my practice has focused on themes of identity, mental health, and what it means to grow up between cultures. Through both traditional and experimental approaches, I create work that reflects the challenges of navigating multiple worlds and personal identity.
@oscarcamposvalle._.art (instagram)
Princess ‘PS’ Spencer
Princess ‘PS’ Spencer is a multi-hyphenate creative that seeks to create a cultural immersion through drawing, painting, design and music. Her work focuses on the intersection of representation, self-reflection and gender identities within the black diaspora. Most notable is her work on Wale’s “Ambition” album. PS has worked with Apple, Google, Hillman Grad and received honors in American Illustration (41) as well as Best Of: Year In Illustration for her work with The New York Times and recently exhibited her work at The Black History Museum of Virginia.
Qing Imzadi
Qing Imzadi (he/they/cowboy) Cofounder of Nu Rodeo Caldona Artist Collective, is an international multidisciplinary performance and visual artist, writer, and public speaker whose work bridges art, organizing, and community care. With over two decades of experience in social and political organizing, Qing’s creative practice explores transformation, liberation and connecting history to the future. During their VisArts residency, Qing will continue developing This Flower Blooms, a multimedia project weaving poetry, movement, and visual storytelling to explore Black queer becoming, resilience, and futures. They live in Richmond with their wife and two cats.
Samantha Rae Carlson
Samantha Rae Carlson is a multimedia artist splitting her practice exploring vibrant color in painting and with the Black and White of graphite drawing. Her work lends itself into symbol-rich, surrealist descriptions of star filled skies. She received the VCUarts Talent Scholarship and holds a BFA in Painting and Printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University. In 2021 she received the Juror Award for painting in The Anderson’s Juried Undergraduate Exhibition. In 2023 she was featured in Artit’s 16th issue, Bringing Figures to Life. She has also exhibited in numerous pop-ups and galleries across central Virginia, including at The Material Room and Pamplemousse Gallery.
https://www.instagram.com/raeningpaint/
Sofia Gadbois
Sofia Gadbois is an abstract artist based in Richmond, VA originally from Gloucester, MA. Working intuitively, her work explores themes related to understanding psychosis, PTSD and living in imperfect connection with spirit.
She holds a Bachelor’s of Music from McGill University, where she studied the language of jazz. In her art practice, she continues this thread of improvisation and feeling.