Jessica Vollrath

Born in 1984 to an African American father and a Mexican mother, Vollrath grew up in a uniquely diverse household with 11 siblings, a Mennonite background, and a homeschool education.  She discovered her love of painting at around the age of 8, spending her free time experimenting with various art supplies her mother found at garage sales.

At 15, Vollrath met the late Dr. Marilyn Daniels at an art opening. Upon reviewing Vollrath’s portfolio, Dr. Daniels was astonished by the untrained yet remarkable natural talent evident in her work. She immediately offered to mentor her in art. Thanks to Dr. Daniels’ guidance and encouragement, Vollrath went on to earn her BFA from Howard University in 2011 and her MFA from Texas Woman’s University in 2017.

Vollrath primarily works with oil paint but has also explored a variety of other media, including sculpture, latex, and works on paper. Initially trained in figurative art, she began her career as a commissioned portrait painter. Guided by her love of light, color, and the human figure, Vollrath creates biographical works that explore humankind’s eternal search for connection and immortality.  She currently lives in Dallas with her husband and two daughters and serves as an adjunct professor of art at Eastfield College.

Dexter Wimberly is an American curator based in Japan who has organized exhibitions in galleries and institutions around the world including the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City; The Green Family Art Foundation in Dallas, Texas; The Harvey B. Gantt Center in Charlotte, North Carolina; KOKI Arts and STANDING PINE in Tokyo, Japan; BODE in Berlin, Germany; Lehmann Maupin in London, U.K.; SECCI in Milan, Italy; and The Third Line in Dubai, UAE. His exhibitions have been reviewed and featured in publications including The New York Times and Artforum; and have received support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and The Kinkade Family Foundation. In 2023, Wimberly participated in Hauser & Wirth’s International Curatorial Residency Symposium in Somerset, England. Wimberly has been profiled in Elle Decor and Artnet News. Wimberly is a Senior Critic at New York Academy of Art, and the founder and director of the Hayama Artist Residency in Japan.

Gendering the Non-Binary in Anatomical Images

How does the visual representation of the human body in anatomical images play a role in our understanding of gender differences, particularly those of non-binary bodies? Anatomical images exist at the intersection of medicine and art, as well as observation and interpretation. As a result, they reveal much about the practices, beliefs, biases, and power dynamics of the cultures in which they were created. This talk will explore some of the factors that have framed our understanding of and approach to gender differences and will illuminate the longstanding struggle between defining an idealized norm and recognizing the reality of human diversity. 

Allison Hill-Edgar is an artist, art historian, and medical doctor who focuses on the intersection of art, medicine, and gender. In addition to her studio practice, commissions, and exhibitions which explore the human body from many perspectives, she teaches and lectures on the visual arts, art history, and medical representations of gender. She has a BA in Art History from Harvard College, an MD from Columbia College of Physicians & Surgeons, and an MFA in painting from the New York Academy of Art. She is a recipient of the Michael E. DeBakey Fellowship in the History of Medicine at the National Library of Medicine (NIH) for an ongoing research project, “Reframing Anatomical History Through the Female Body,” and gave their annual lecture in 2021. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the New York Academy of Art, the Glimmerglass Festival, and Family Planning of South-Central New York. A selection of her work can be found at allisonhill-edgar.com.

Keith Timmons Lecture Series
Organized by Clifford Owens, Director of Critical Studies, New York Academy of Art
This lecture series is supported by Keith Timmons, a Baltimore-based art collector, to convene Black artists, scholars, curators, and critics at the New York Academy of Art during the 2024 – 2025 academic year.

Abigail DeVille’s most recent solo exhibitions, Prospect 6, The Future is Present, The Harbinger is Home, New Orleans (2024) In the Fullness of Time, Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME (2024) In the fullness of time, the heart speaks truths too deep for utterance, but a star remembers. JTT NYC,  (2023), Original Night at Eric Firestone Gallery, New York, NY (2022-23), Bronx Heavens, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY (2022-23), Light of Freedom, organized by Madison Square Park Conservancy, New York, NY (2020-21), and traveled to the Momentary at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR (2021) Hirshhorn Museum Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC (2021-22), Kenyon College (2023-24) The American Future, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland OR (2018-19); Empire State Works in Progress (2017) Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; No Space Hidden (Shelter) Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2017-2018) DeVille is a 2024-25 Hodder Fellow at Princeton, 2022 Anonymous Was a Woman Award recipient, 2018 United States Artists Fellow, 2017-2018 Rome Prize fellow at the American Academy in Rome, 2015 Obie Award for Design, 2015 Creative Capital grantee, 2014-15 fellow at The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, 2013-14 Artist in Residence at The Studio Museum in Harlem, 2012 Joan Mitchell Foundation grant recipient. DeVille received her MFA from Yale University and BFA from the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Monique Long lives and works in New York City. She is a writer and arts professional with an interdisciplinary practice. An independent curator of contemporary art, Long interests include Black narratives and making, popular culture, and fashion history. She has organized exhibitions at institutions including Princeton University Art Museum, Portland Museum of Art, Guild Hall, Museum of the African Diaspora, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, and many others. Prior to working independently, Long held curatorial positions at The Studio Museum in Harlem and the Museum of Arts and Design. Long is also a critic who has contributed to publications widely on contemporary art and personal essays. Her most recent exhibition is on view at Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh.

Photo credit: Kyle Dorosz for New York Magazine, 2019

Ali Banisadr, born in 1976 in Tehran, Iran, emigrated to California with his family in 1988 at the age of twelve, where he became immersed in the local graffiti art scene while studying psychology. He later moved to New York City, earning a BFA from the School of Visual Arts (2005) and an MFA from the New York Academy of Art (2007), and he currently resides and works in Brooklyn, NY. Banisadr’s expansive, highly detailed paintings evoke tumultuous worlds, where intricate rhythms and a rich array of references from art history converge to offer profound reflections on the human condition.

His work draws from a vast spectrum of sources, including ancient and contemporary history, mythology, personal experience, and sonic memories, creating unique realms that explore both the personal and the collective. His paintings are informed by a dazzling mastery of various artistic traditions—from the precision of Persian miniatures and the energy of Abstract Expressionism to the narrative clarity of Dutch masters, the splendor of Venetian Renaissance art, and the surrealist impulses of early 20th-century painters. Banisadr’s scenes are both figurative and abstract, blending autobiographical narratives with larger themes of world history and collective memory.

His first major U.S. survey will be held in 2025 at the Katonah Museum of Art in New York, and his work is included in prestigious public collections worldwide, including the British Museum, the Centre Pompidou, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden ,and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Notable solo exhibitions have taken place at institutions such as the Museo Stefano Bardini and palazzo Vecchio in Florence (2021), the Benaki Museum in Athens (2020), the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford (2020), and Gemäldegalerie, Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, Austria (2019); while his work has also been featured in significant group exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale (2013-14) and the Prague Biennale (2013), Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2021), Museum of Fine Arts ,Houston (2017), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY (2012). A major book will be published in March 2025 by Yale University press with critical essays by Dr. Gražina Subelytė, Associate Curator, Peggy Guggenheim Collection; Dr. Bill Sherman, Director, The Warburg Institute, University of London; and Michelle Yun Mapplethorpe, Director, Katonah Museum of Art. It will also feature a transcribed conversation with the artist and noted art historian Robert Storr.

Katherine Bradford’s mesmerizing yet rigorous visual language freely traverses the relationship between nonobjective and representational painting, allowing potential narratives to unfold and interweave with the investigation of form and color. Vast expanses of color divide her canvases into distinct horizontal planes while the variations in saturation and tone evoke an elusive yet almost palpable atmosphere. Lighter and darker hues are interchangeable and used without functional or hierarchical distinction, introducing spatial elements such as the sea and the sky, beaches and poolsides. These monochromatic backgrounds are occupied by human figures, often swimmers and bathers, whose androgynous, featureless bodies are roughly sketched. driven by an unbiased curiosity, the artist allows her imagery to acquire a porous malleability where a pictorial sign becomes a signifier. Bradford’s practice has honed over four decades, maturing into a nonacademic, creative freedom that resonates deeply with the aesthetical and socio-political concerns of our time. It is her commitment to dynamic change and to the fluid state of human togetherness that Bradford so poignantly expresses in her radiant liquid fields. Katherine Bradford was born in New York in 1942. She lives and works in New York.

Selected Museum Exhibitions

Katherine Bradford’s work has been exhibited internationally at Frye Art Museum, Seattle (2023); Portland Museum of Art, Portland (2022); Hall Art Foundation, Reading (2021); Carpenter Center for Visual Art, Cambridge (2021); Tang Teaching Museum, Skidmore College, New York (2020); Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville (2019); The Brooklyn Museum, New York; Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans (2017-18); Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth (2017); MoMA PS1, New York (2007); among others.

Public Collections
Bradford’s work is held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Brooklyn Museum, New York; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas; The Menil Collection, Houston; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; and the Portland Museum of Art, Portland, among others. Source: kaufmann Repetto.

Dexter Wimberly is an American curator based in Japan who has organized exhibitions in galleries and institutions around the world including the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City; The Green Family Art Foundation in Dallas, Texas; The Harvey B. Gantt Center in Charlotte, North Carolina; KOKI Arts and STANDING PINE in Tokyo, Japan; BODE in Berlin, Germany; Lehmann Maupin in London, U.K.; SECCI in Milan, Italy; and The Third Line in Dubai, UAE. His exhibitions have been reviewed and featured in publications including The New York Times and Artforum; and have received support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and The Kinkade Family Foundation. In 2023, Wimberly participated in Hauser & Wirth’s International Curatorial Residency Symposium in Somerset, England. Wimberly has been profiled in Elle Decor and Artnet News. Wimberly is a Senior Critic at New York Academy of Art, and the founder and director of the Hayama Artist Residency in Japan.

swimmers by the town, 2004
acrylic on canvas
80 x 68 inches

carry painting, mother, 2023
acrylic on canvas
80 x 68 inches

Camping Trip, 2016

acrylic on canvas

68 x 80 inches

All images copyright Katherine Bradford