Chris Facey is a Brooklyn, NY-raised photographer currently based in Raleigh, NC. His photographic journey encapsulates the powerful yet tender moments that shape our world. Drawn to the impactful works of Gordon Parks and W. Eugene Smith, Chris documents communities, primarily the African-American community, with a unique sensitivity, carving space for emotional resonance while delving into significant issues, such as racial injustices during the current civil rights movement to combating stereotypes within these communities.

With a keen eye and passionate spirit, Chris has dedicated his career to spotlighting the African-American community's stories. As a father, he’s embarked on “The Dad Duty Project,” aiming to challenge the misconception of absentee fathers within the black and brown communities. Additionally, his “ Even In Death” project shows the preservation of an African-American cemetery and its fight against erasure and revisionist history in North Carolina.

@coco.butter.shutter

cocobuttershutter.com / cocobuttershutter@gmail.com

Cornell Watson is a Dope-Ass Black photographer based in Durham, North Carolina. He frequently contributes photography to national publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, ESPN, and Bloomberg. He has also photographed national ad campaigns for companies such as T-Mobile, MeUndies, Bombas, and Adidas. With his photography centered around sharing the stories of Black people, he has won several awards, including The Alexia for his photo series “Behind the Mask.” When he’s not watching the 1000th episode of CoComelon, being the best spouse in the world, or editing photos while his four-year-old daughter edits the furniture with non-washable crayons, you can find him passed out from exhaustion on the living room couch.

@cornwhizzle

cornellwatson.com

Image Credit: Peyton Sickles

Denise Allen is an African American single mother, educator, and a visionary artist/photographer. She started her career doing catalog and freelance work. Fortunately, she didn't have to wait long before she became emerged in the Fashion Industry in New York. The unfortunate part of this experience was the timing because it was during the outbreak of the AIDS Virus. Denise was devastated and didn't know what she could do to help. All of a sudden, she felt like her work lacked significance and purpose which lead to her going back to school to pursue teaching art.

Over the years, she has realized that she does have a voice, and she can use her photography to make a difference in the world. Eventually, she stepped away from teaching to focus on using photography to create images that help her to navigate through this thing called “life” and to share stories, stories that raise consciousness about the stigma associated with various issues and people, especially black women. Her work creates a safe environment to spark conversations and it enlist the viewer as a witness, as someone who might talk back or speak up.

@Denise_Allen1

deniseallenphotography.com

Derrick Beasley is a multidisciplinary artist from Durham, NC. His works explore Black life and its intersections with the environment. Derrick's work often uses surrealism to stretch ideas around what is possible and imagine new realities for Black masculinity and relationships with the environment.

Beasley received a BA at North Carolina A&T and a MPA from Georgia State University. Derrick's work has been exhibited and published nationally, with his most notable solo exhibition and residency being at NorthStar Church of the Arts in Durham, NC. He has received multiple grants and awards including from the Pivotal Fund, the Ella Fountain Pratt Emerging Artist Grant, and the Awesome Foundation Grant.

Beasley’s work aims to facilitate the exploration of possibilities and the imagining, designing, and unearthing of just and equitable worlds.

derrickbeasley.art / beasley.derrick@gmail.com

@brobeas

Gadisse, an emerging fine art and self-portrait photographer, blends creativity, life experiences, and cultural influences in her work. With a Fine Arts degree specializing in Photography from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Gadisse captures her life's essence.

Her art reflects an unconventional upbringing and adapting to a new culture during her formative years. This background shapes Gadisse's self-portrait photography, infusing each image with introspection and identity.

Currently, Gadisse's art graces the Greenhill Art Center in Greensboro alongside artist John Rosenthal. She recently showcased evocative works at Durham's Apple Art, delving into her past. Having exhibited at the Block Gallery in 2022, her return is awaited.

Looking ahead, Gadisse's next milestone arrives with her second solo exhibition at the Horace Williams House Preservation in Chapel Hill in 2024. This showcase will reveal the depth of her artistic vision.

@gadisselee

leegadisse.wixsite.com

Hailing from Durham, North Carolina, Jaylan Rhea draws inspiration from the rich tapestry of life often on view in his community, intertwining personal experiences and universal themes in their work. Rhea is an interdisciplinary artist with a focus on portrait photography, highlighting diversity, gender, sexuality, and performance art. Rhea has shot for a range of publications such as Human Shift Magazine, Bricks Magazine, and Vogue.com and has had works featured in the “To Be Young: Coming of Age in the Contemporary” exhibition at the North Carolina Museum of Art.

@nonbinaryonthecouch

Image Credit: Abigail Ruth

Based in Durham, North Carolina, Kwaku Osei is a dynamic and innovative mixed-media visual artist with over a decade of experience in the arts. He has refined his craft through academic training, earning a Bachelor's degree from Temple University and a Master's degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art.

His artwork serves as a reflection of his diverse cultural background, employing a variety of mediums and techniques to craft visually stunning and thought-provoking pieces that challenge viewers' perceptions.

Beyond his creative endeavors, Kwaku is a dedicated educator, imparting his knowledge and expertise as a Visual Arts instructor to inspire the next generation of artists. His commitment to teaching and mentoring underscores his dedication to promoting diversity and inclusion in the arts.

www.kwakuoseistudios.com

patreon.com/KwakuOseiStudios

Leticia Clementina is a Durham, NC-based photographer and program director for a community-based nonprofit. Raised in Eastern North Carolina, her curiosity about the obscure realities that exist within the human experience was nurtured in family photo albums that held snapshots of lived moments she desired to know more about. Leticia’s current photography practice seeks to explore, document, and reveal the intricate and less obvious aspects of the lives of those around her and her personal experiences as she learns more about herself, her family, and the environment that nurtures them.

Her Master's Degree in Social Work and professional practice creates an opportunity for Leticia’s photography to combine evidence-based knowledge with symbolic representation. Leticia’s ongoing photography series Fruit of the Black Man’s Hand aspires to recognize the fruitful contributions of Black men in her life and community and how those contributions impact their loved ones and beyond.

@eyemakepictures

Mark Anthony Brown Jr. (b. 1991), is a journeyman of sorts. Not dedicated to a single given location for too long, he currently lives and works between Cincinnati, Ohio, Durham, North Carolina and Atlanta, Georgia. Mark has received a Bachelor of Science Technology from Bowling Green State University and is currently in pursuit of a MFA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he is a fellow in Museum Practice at The Ackland Art Museum.

Mark’s art practice is research driven and interdisciplinary; utilizing photography, sculpture, drawing and painting with an interest in vernacular aesthetic practices & sensibilities, the manifestation of African retentions in the diaspora, semiotics, and archival practices.

His work has been exhibited nationally; including the Cincinnati Art Museum, Mint Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia and Block Gallery in Raleigh, North Carolina. Mark has received various fellowships and awards including an Emerging Lens Fellowship from ArtWORKS in Chicago (2022), the Nexus Grant from Atlanta Contemporary (2022), and a Visiting Researcher Fellowship at Wilson Special Collection Library at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2023).

@markanthonybrownjr

Markanthonybrownjr.us

Image Credit: Kara Young

Currently based in Mebane and Raleigh, North Carolina, Phillip “King Phill” Loken was born in Texas and has lived in various cities and towns across North Carolina since age four. His photography is intimately tied to his lived experiences as a Black man in the American South. He wants to capture the rich history and vibrant cultural expressions that influence the lives of the people he makes images of.

Loken's work has been exhibited nationally. This year, he will be exhibiting in Lake City, South Carolina’s ArtFields 2024 Competition. In 2023, his work was part of the It Ain't All Black And White group exhibition at Raleigh, NC's Block Gallery during Click! Photography Festival, and the group exhibition Black and White: 2023 at Black Box Gallery in Portland, Oregon. In 2022, Loken participated in the Give Black Raleigh Her Flowers' exhibition at Anchorlight Gallery in Raleigh, N.C.. In 2021, Loken participated in the exhibition BLACK GAZE: Representation, Identity, and Expression at The Light Factory Photo Arts Center.

As a professional photographer, Loken has worked with a variety of organizations and companies, including the City of Raleigh, CreativeMornings, the North Carolina Museum of Art, NoirBnb, Special Olympics North Carolina, and Woodforest National Bank. His photographs have also been licensed for use by the Greater Raleigh Convention & Visitors Bureau, Verizon’s Go90 docuseries American Down Low, and Walter Magazine. Loken was featured in a documentary film, Creative NC: An Introspective Look at Creative Culture, which premiered in 2017 at the North Carolina Museum of History.

@kingphill_

kingphill.us

Titus Brooks Heagins is a documentary photographer who is obsessed with creating beautiful images regardless of the subject matter. He photographs in ways that the beauty in the experiences of the “outsider” simply doesn’t escape his eye. That photography is rooted in and dedicated to the expressive documentary spirit and tradition. Within that spirit, authorship and a personal visual aesthetic are grounded in humanistic stories and themes.

Heagins was born in Chicago but grew up in a small rural neighborhood in Houston, Texas. His practice is deeply rooted in the lessons learned and experiences of those who lived within the confines of the segregated South and dreams unattained as a result.

His creative expressions include writing poetry and prose. He is currently writing a creative fiction about race in the South. In the past, he has been both a jazz and classical musician. His life is truly that of a Renaissance man.

Heagins graduated from Duke University and the University of Michigan with a Master of Fine Art. He taught photography at universities afterward. For the past twenty years, Heagins has created extensive bodies of work throughout the Black Diaspora, including Cuba, Haiti, Barbados, Ghana, South Africa, and Brazil. His projects have carried him to China, photographing those displaced by the building of the Three Gorges Dam, Japan, photographing Lolita Girls, and Vietnam, creating portraits of the children of African American soldiers.

He his portfolios of his photography in the Smithsonian Museums in Washington DC, and the North Carolina Museum of Art, and the Do Good Fund. He is included in the exhibition and book Southbound: Photography of and About the New South, the largest exhibition of 21st-century photography about the American South.

He lives in Durham with his wife, Maureen, and their English Springer Spaniel, Carter.