Current Annual Residents

September 2026 – July 2027

Nathan Hosmer Nevarez

Nathan Hosmer Nevarez is a painter, textile maker, and ESL educator born in Washington D.C. While he grew up in the United States he spent his summers in his mother’s home country of Ecuador. He earned His BFA in Painting and Printmaking with minors in Chemistry and Art History from the Honors College at Virginia Commonwealth University. In his artwork, he uses the myth of the Chusalongo, a folklore from Southern Ecuador, to explore how systems of power construct narratives that orient certain people as demons. His work is informed by the texts like Queer Phenomology and The Polticis of Emotions by Sara Ahmad. He draws heavily from histories of Imperial conquest in Latin America as recounted in Eduardo Galeano’s *The Open Veins of Latin America*. He is interested in how subjective positions, such as north vs south and immigrant vs citizen came to exist. He has exhibited work in group shows at Steven Zevitas Gallery in Boston, CAH Eye Street Gallery in Washington D.C., the Greenville Museum of Art in North Carolina and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Virginia Beach. He has also worked in curatorial roles for projects such as the exhibition Hilos Heredados at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond (the first Hispanic Heritage Month Show in Richmond) and an upcoming juried show focusing on queer resistance opening in June at Second Street Gallery in Charlottesville, Virginia. Nathan’s work has also recently been featured in New American Painting South Issue 166 and was chosen as a Noteworthy Artists in the South Issue 178. He is also the recipient of many awards including a Fulbright Grant to Ecuador for the 2024/2025 academic year.

Website: nathanhosmer.com
Instagram: @nathan.hoz.nev

Raven Larcom

Raven Larcom is a multidisciplinary artist interested in exploring the difference between instinct and conscious thought. Borrowing motifs from her background in biology and love for vintage sci-fi, her work often features biomorphic shapes with large spikes, unsettling textures, and bold colors. She primarily works with ceramics and mixed media—often incorporating light, hair, papier-mâché, sound, and other digital components. By playing with discomfort and the emotional impact of form, she hopes to better understand our collective inviolable triggers and reintroduce them as safe and whimsical experiences.

Website: ravenlar.com
Instagram: @_g_l_o_b 

Justin Ricardo Cockrell (They/them)

Justin Ricardo Cockrell (they/them) is a contemporary craftsperson, and educator using the language of fiber to produce textiles, furniture, and comfort objects. The goods they manufacture offer space for poetic and emotional exploration of identity, lineage, and power through material + labor. They believe that when you approach material as an equal, you can discover ways of collaboration that will result in a future beyond the current crisis.

Born to freedom in Columbus, Ohio, they now live, and love, their Queer Black Mexican-American life in the fallen capital of the confederacy, Richmond, Virginia.

They have exhibited work at The Virginia MOCA, The Appalachian Center for Craft, The Bascom, ROY G BIV Gallery, The Anderson Gallery, and have participated in educational community at Penland School of Craft, Haystack Mountain School of Craft, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Center for Furniture Craftsmanship, and The Crafting the Future Teen Takeover. They earned their BFA in Craft/Material studies and BA in Foreign Language with an emphasis in Spanish at Virginia Commonwealth University and are alumni of the Yale Norfolk School of Art.

Artwork phot credit: Jacob Wall and David Handforth

Website: justinrcockrell.com
Instagram: @Justin.rtc

Ellis Sawyer

Ellis Sawyer (he/him) is a writer, photographer, and cultural worker born in Chicago and based in Richmond, Virginia. His practice began in childhood writing superhero stories and deepened through the music he inherited from his family — a lifelong investigation of what Black communities hold and transmit through music. His work explores inheritance, memory, Black poesis, and self-making — how knowledge moves across generations and diaspora, and music as a mode of thought. He studied philosophy at Morehouse College, and conceived and curated Hymns to Hip-Hop at the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia.

Substack: aletterfortherecord.substack.com
Instagram: @Iam.Elliss