GALLERIES

Kathryn Desplanque, PhD is a queer mixed Black multigenerational immigrant who expresses her liminality by creating multimedia exotopias - outsider/alien landscapes. You can see her work at Neo-Psychedelia at CAM Raleigh through March 2024, a group exhibition she co-curated with Raj Bunnag. Kathryn is a tenure-track assistant professor of 18th and 19th century European art history at UNC Chapel Hill. Her book Inglorious Artists: Art-World Satire and the Emergence of a Capitalist Market for Art, 1750-1850 is forthcoming from University of Delaware press.

David Benarroch (b.1982) is an Israeli-Spanish artist who works in sculpture, drawing, and mixed media. He lives and works between Durham NC, Madrid, and Tel Aviv. Benarroch received his Bachelor’s and Master of Fine Arts degrees from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, alongside his studies at l’École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He has received international awards and grants, including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant for 2022, and participated in various solo and group exhibitions, alongside artistic residencies in Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Israel, France, Argentina, and the United States.

Connect with David: www.davidbenarroch.com

Xireon Poole is a Freshman studying at Durham Technical Community College. He is graduating in 2026 and is looking forward to continuing studies in the arts, focusing on Art and Design (with Art History). Xireon was one of four students in 2023 in the Durham Art Guild's Creative Mentorship Program where they created 3 pieces of artwork that was on display in the Golden Belt Gallery in June 2023, focusing on the themes of Black trangender youths, as well as honoring the black women in his life. Xireon also spends his time writing his own stories, reading, and celebrating the spooky season.

Jared Ledesma is Curator of 20th-Century Art and Contemporary Art at the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA). In this role, Ledesma works towards strengthening the NCMA’s 20th-century and contemporary art program, especially in the presentation and collecting of art by Latinx, queer, and women artists. Since his hire in 2022, Ledesma has mounted the exhibitions The Surrealist Impulse and Luis Rey Velasco, and successfully defended the acquisition of works by Felipe Baeza and Irene Rice Pereira, among others.

Connect with Jared: IG @orinocoflowin

Yuko Nogami Taylor, a native of Japan, studied Art at Kyoto University of the Arts as well as at North Carolina Central University. Yuko is a skilled artist in many mediums; however, she has returned to the traditional Japanese medium called “Nihonga”. This age-old technique involves the intricate process of using crushed precious mineral pigments mixed with glue and painted on rice paper or fine silk. Her eye for symmetry, composition, and visual cues makes her paintings simultaneously powerful and delicate.

Connect with Yuko: www.yukotaylor.com IG: @yukotaylor