Current Studio Access Residents
Aaron Thompson (he/him)
Aaron Thompson received his BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and his MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Alongside his studio practice, he has taught art to youth in Richmond’s Mosby Court community and to undergraduate students at Wayne State University. His practice examines history, identity, and the enduring structures of anti-Black racism through painting, sculpture, and found materials. Rooted in a Southern perspective, his work reimagines everyday objects as vessels of memory, resilience, and cultural reflection.
Hannah Randall (she/her)
As a first generation graduate from rural Virginia, my work is heavily inspired by Appalachian life and blue collar living. Scott Mclanahan wrote, “I put the dirt from my home in my pockets and I travel. I am making the world my mountain,” perfectly capturing the motives behind my practice. Rural communities are often unrecognized in the arts world, leaving centuries of history and culture untold. Utilizing book arts and publication design, my work aims to tell the story of a forgotten Appalachia and honor my family that lives on with the Blue Ridge Mountains today.
Website: hannahrandall.cargo.site
Karina Monroy (she/her)
Karina is a California born Chicana, mixed media artist and art therapist currently based in Richmond, Virginia. She holds a B.A. in Art and Anthropology from the University of California, Santa Cruz and an MA in Art Therapy from The George Washington University. As an artist and art therapist, Karina is process-driven – embodying art-making as spiritual ritual, and spiritual ritual as art-making. Her work explores, challenges and embraces themes of healing, femininity and matrilineal legacies within Chicanx culture. Through needlework, painting, sculpture and drawing, Karina creates delicate images and objects as sacred restorative offerings for herself and her feminine ancestors.
Website: karinaamonroy.com
Lenny Farinholt (she/her)
Lenny Farinholt is a multimedia artist from Richmond, VA. Lenny graduated from Bennington College in 2023 with a BA in Video and Media Studies. There she completed a thesis titled; “The Desire to Self-Document: Lesbian Filmmaking Practices in the 70s, 80s, and 90s.” She is interested in the ways historical research intersects with artmaking and is very inspired by archives and libraries. Her video work has been featured in the Transfiguration Film Festival and Miss Video Chainletter. In addition to short films, she’s also into experimenting with light through making lampshades and 35mm projected slideshows. An avid journal-er, most of her work includes written elements, grounded by the process of handwriting or hand-stitching words in cursive.
Website: vimeo.com/user87911798
Malia Stisher (she/her)
Malia Stisher is a ceramic artist from Richmond, Virginia, who creates sculptural, often functional characters that assist with everyday tasks. She refers to these characters as “Minks”. They begin as illustrations, inspired by the people and animals she encounters. More recently, her work has focused on forms that house keepsakes and serve as resting places for found natural objects she has collected over time.
Malia began working with clay in 2016 and, with an interest in art therapy, went on to study psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University. She also attended Florence University of the Arts in Florence, Italy, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in psychology in 2024. Her practice is influenced by her studies, travels, and time spent visiting family in Hawaii, experiences that continue to inform and shape her work.
Website: wwwmink.com
Instagram: @maliastisher
Mars Escobar
Mars is a Richmond based multidisciplinary artist with Salvadoran roots. Working through mixed media, their practice explores heritage and cultural identity through visual storytelling. Drawing from urban environments and lived experience, their work reflects a personal and intuitive approach to creating.
At the center of their practice is a focus on telling stories connected to their Salvadoran heritage, while also speaking to broader Latino and Indigenous experiences, both personal and collective. Through this process, Mars reflects on where they come from, what has been inherited, and what is continuing to take shape.
Instagram: @whos.mars_
M.O. Cherry (he/him)
Cherry is a multimedia artist working primarily in clay and sculpture. Key themes in his work are practices of removal and censorship, global sculptural and craft histories, and navigating (in)visibility.
Cherry has a BA in sociology, and this drives him to ask how the meaning of symbols and individual artistic actions are created and reinforced in material culture.
Maurice Ivory Wilson (he/him)
Maurice Ivory Wilson is a Richmond, VA–based photographer working primarily with film. His work documents loved ones and communities he deeply values, exploring their lived experiences with care and curiosity. Rooted in the traditions of street photography and darkroom practice, he creates images that reflect both personal connection and a broader social perspective.
Wilson works with several local organizations, including serving as a volunteer photographer for Art 180, a darkroom studio monitor at the Visual Arts Center, and a member of the media team at The Mount Carmel Baptist Church. His work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions in Virginia, and three of his photographs were recently on view in the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia’s Bodies of Labor exhibit.
Website: mauriceivory.com
Instagram: @_mauriceivory
Olivia Christie (She/her)
Olivia Christie graduated from VCU with a BFA in Craft and Material Studies and minor in Sculpture and Art History. Olivia has a concentration on wood and glass, but enjoys experimenting with all materials and has experience with metal smithing, fibers, ceramics, and foundry. She has studied craft along the East Coast at places such as Pocosin Arts School of Fine Craft, John C. Campbell Folk School, and interning for Joe Hobbs, a glass artist based in Pensacola, Florida. Olivia also has some professional experience as a Teaching Assistant to VCU’s glass professors, Bohyun Yoon and Min-Haeng. Olivia has found a love for the craft community and teaching, and is striving to attend graduate school to pursue an MFA. Her work has been exhibited at shows such as Meta}L{morphosis: A Survey of Radical Transformation at the James A Hilton Art Gallery (Norfolk, VA), The Cup Show at Alma’s Gallery (Richmond, VA), Everything is a Chair at Daniel Rickey’s Studio (Richmond, VA), Spookhaus at the Anderson Gallery (Richmond, VA)
Olivia is a craftsperson and artist currently residing in Richmond, Virginia. Olivia grew up in Manassas, VA, and graduated from Charles J. Colgan High School, where she was introduced to the arts community.
Website: livchristie.com
Instagram: @liv_christie_art
Ollie Hoffmaster (they/them)
Ollie Hoffmaster is a potter, glass artist, and illustrator based in Richmond, Virginia. Their work is a form of record keeping, using making as a means of processing life. Growing up in a forest, their art takes visual inspiration from plants and their states: how they communicate when they need water, when they need light, when they are flourishing, etc. Their work often reflects on what makes us feel connected to those we love when they are gone and how tableware hosts connection. Through this residency they look to further their skill in fiber. When paired with clay glass, fiber is a record keeper to these materials that are otherwise stagnant in time. Fiber offers them a soft place to land and a seat in the present. Through fiber, they also look to explode creating hidden messages found in plain sight.
Ollie received their B.F.A. in Craft/Material Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. They work as a Studio Technician and Instructor at both Still Life Ceramics Studio and The Glass Ceiling.
Instagram: @inanolivetree
Pamela Guzman (she/her)
Pamela Guzman is a visual artist based in Richmond, Va. Her work often reflects on her experience as a child of immigrants. She enjoys incorporating elements of collage and text into her pieces. She hopes to one day add “poet” to her artist bio.
Instagram: @xguzman_santosx
Rayana Hill (she/her)
Rayana Hill is a Richmond-based artist whose work explores the threshold between painting and sculpture, engaging in themes of memory, obscurity, transformation, and unseen labor. Her tactile artworks are created from a combination of drawing, painting, printing, hand-cutting, and assemblage techniques. Her labor-intensive process of hand-cutting and layering individual strips of paper is an act of obsession and persistence. Rayana earned her BFA in Art Education from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2020 and her MA in Art Education from the University of Florida in 2025. She is a full-time art educator in Chesterfield, Virginia. Her artistic practice is heavily impacted by her identity as an educator, caretaker, woman, partner, and daughter. During her VisArts residency, she will continue developing her current series, What Is Carried, exploring the maintenance required to perform these roles in accordance with both her personal expectations and societal standards.
Website: rayanahill.com
Instagram: @rayanahillart
Roberto Jamora (he/him)
Roberto Jamora is a Richmond-based artist and educator. He holds an MFA from the State University of New York at Purchase and a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCUarts). He is an Assistant Professor at the VCUarts Art Foundation Program. Roberto is working on a series of abstract paintings titled “An Inventory of Traces,” which explores the visual effects of color to evoke memory. He is the Asian Centennial Distinguished Fine Arts Fellow at William & Mary. He has participated in Artist-in-Residence programs at the Cow House Studios, Arte Studio Ginestrelle, Jentel Artist Residency, VCCA-France Moulin à Nef, Hambidge Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Joan Mitchell Center, Ragdale Foundation, and Sambalikhaan Foundation. His artwork has been exhibited at the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, Contemporary Art Center of New Orleans, SFA Projects, Antenna, FLXST Contemporary, Page Bond Gallery, Philippine Consulate in New York, ADA Gallery, Topaz Arts, Norte Maar, Shockoe Artspace, JuiceBox Art Space, Good Enough Projects, Quality Gallery, Scott Charmin Gallery, Fouladi Projects, the Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelly Foundation, Open Space, Outlet Fine Art, ArtHelix, and Ishmael Bernal Gallery. He is represented by Bond Millen Gallery in Richmond. His artwork is in collections including the Atlanta Hawks NBA Team, Capital One, Harvard Kennedy School, Muscarelle Museum of Art at William & Mary, and several private collections throughout North America, the Philippines, and the United Kingdom.
Website: robertojamora.com
Ty Martin (she/they)
Ty Martin is a multimedia artist specializing in ceramics, basketry, found materials, and fiber. Her work playfully layers interrupting patterns to create hypnotic rhythms that loosen rigid expectations. Ty’s practice resists capitalist pressures to define the value of making through marketability or status, instead centering exploration and connection.
Ty began her studies in environmental science before earning a master’s degree in social work and Reiki certification. Through her work in healing spaces, she hopes to lessen the cycles of overconsumption that contribute to environmental harm helping people access community, meaning and fulfillment outside of consumer culture. Ty has been a resident artist and assistant at Penland School of Craft, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, John C. Campbell Folk School, and Touchstone Center for Crafts.
Yasmeen Jaaber (they/them)
Yasmeen Jaaber is a writer, printmaker, performer and archivist. They are primarily interested in story-telling that complicates reality. Yasmeen runs Rover Magazine, which was developed in 2022 to contemplate the ideas of LGBTQ+ artists of color. They believe in knowledge as an infinite and renewable source to be tapped into and created from. Overall, Yasmeen is someone who strives to shed tears about once a day, enjoys coloring, lets the sun hit them till it burns, provides care and is in constant communication with the wind.
Website: r0vermag.com