GALLERIES

Clarence Heyward is a painter whose work investigates cultural truths, challenges stereotypes, and examines identity.

He has exhibited his work in spaces nationally including the 21c Museum of Durham, the Harvey B. Gantt Center for Cultural Arts, the Wiregrass Museum, the Museum of Science and Industry Chicago, the Art Miami Art Fair, the Dallas Art Fair, Expo Chicago, the Container-Santa Fe, the Cameron Art Museum, the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, and (CAM) the Contemporary Art Museum of Raleigh, NC.

Heyward was the recipient of The Brightwork Fellowship residency at Anchorlight Raleigh in 2019-2020, the Emerging Artist in Residence at Artspace, Raleigh in 2021, the Ragdale (IL) artist fellowship in 2022, the 2022 Artist in Residence at NC State University, an IEA Artist in Residence at Alfred University in NY in 2023, and the Al Maqam artist residency in Marrakech, Morocco (2024). His work is in the collections of several notable private and public collections including the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Nasher Museum of Art, the Mint Museum of Art, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Ackland Art Museum, the Taubman Museum, and the Cameron Museum of Art.

Anna Wallace is a current resident and native of Durham, North Carolina. She holds a BFA in Ceramics from the Cleveland Institute of Art, and an MFA in Studio Art from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She is a practicing studio artist and arts educator. The work in Anna’s studio infiltrates, as if the rugs, chairs, and vessels sprouted legs and marched out of the home and into the white box of the gallery. The colors, pattern density, and visual stimulation demand we pay attention. Her practice spans sculpture, installation, and performance.

Sanjé James is a multimedia artist with a focus on photography. She received her BFA in Photography at Lesley Art + Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her work is fueled by the topics of race, class, and self-exploration. She weaves through pop culture’s influences on her generation and the complexity of being raised in a predominantly white suburb, by challenging the viewer to see black women in a different light than from what they may be used to and haunting stereotypes. James challenges her viewers to often reflect on the past and how society constantly changes how we view the world. 

Artist: Watercolor, Oil, Acrylic

Web site: loisbronstein.com

Lois Bronstein is an accomplished painter working in a variety of media. Most work is watercolor on paper, which can be easily transported to paint anywhere in the world. Lois enjoys looking for sources of inspiration, continually developing her skills and supporting fellow artists. A resident of North Carolina Lois has been a member of the Durham Art Guild since 2000 and served 6 years on the Board as an officer and leader of Member Services.

Connect with Lois: www.loisbronstein.com

Maya Ghanem (they/she) is an aspiring researcher, community builder, and artist focusing on queer Muslim solidarity. As a leader of the queer Muslim group Jummah 4 All, they organized prayer services, social events, artist workshops, scholarly talks, Ramadan dinners, and political involvement. Receiving a Bachelor of Arts from the International Comparative Studies Department at Duke, they researched queer Muslims and environmental futurisms, highlighting the interconnected potential to break Orientalist queer/Muslim and human/nature binaries. In their first art installation at VAE Raleigh, Maya explored relational subjectivity, incorporating queer and Muslim elements into make-up and photography portraits of her close friends.