Artists in Residence: The Ellsworth Artist Residency Program

Korean-born Kyong Boon Oh received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her BS in Mathematics from Korea University. She was a painter before but her choice of metal wire, a childhood toy that she tried during 13 years of health problems, gave rise to her current art practice of hand-weaving wire. Now she has expanded her mediums to sculpting. She is a founding member of SSGOC (Stone Sculptors Guild of Orange County).

Transcendent end is hidden in our own depths, waiting for the chance to occupy a conscious moment. Kyong Boon Oh tries to discover the moment and reveal it through her art practice. Oh’s art practice has two objectives, one focus on identity, the other defocus from it. The tension from the two makes her walk a line between emotion and meditation. As a Korean-born living abroad with a cultural barrier, she desires to project a possible identity by adopting from both historical and imaginative imagery with a nomadic perspective. But at the same time, she enters into a meditative state, viewing a single thread of wire or a single linear form of stone as my stream of consciousness, pursuing intimacy with the medium with the labor-intensity, and considering the negative space that is left behind as “a place of reconciliation.” That interiority alludes to transcendence of the self.

Lorenzo Baker is an accomplished artist and alumnus of Dillard University (’14) and Otis College of Art and Design (’18). His artwork has garnered critical acclaim and recognition, including a feature in Umber Magazine Issue #4, and an invitation to speak as a guest artist in the Museum of African Diaspora (MOAD) In The Artist Studio program. Most recently, Lorenzo completed a year-long project and collaboration with The Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and in April of 2022 Lorenzo’s artwork was showcased on the popular television show Bel-Air.

Lorenzo Baker is a multi-disciplinary artist utilizing parafiction and perifacts to complicate ideas of collective memory. Fluctuating between the indexical and the symbolic, Lorenzo’s art practice takes shape as digital collages, ready made sculptures, site specific multimedia installations and sometimes unsanctioned public activations.

Marissa Brown is a biracial, Black and Portuguese, Multidisciplinary artist. Her primary language comes from movement of the body and translates into works of live performance, film, installation, photography, and publication. She has her BFA in Performance and Choreography from University of California Irvine and MFA from California Institute of the Arts. Her work has been shown extensively in San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles. Under the name Lone King Projects, she creates and shares intimate moments of expression.

Steven Rahbany is a Los Angeles based artist who has been exploring a hand sewn pillow technique for the past few years. With a graphic design background, he blends typography and shapes with sewing to weave nostalgia and present issues. His work has been exhibited in group and solo shows at galleries such as The Houston Contemporary Art Museum, TAG Gallery, Agora Art Gallery in New York, and Photo LA.

Jesse Fregozo is a native Angeleno who primarily works as a painter. He vocalizes the struggles of marginalized communities through the representation of identity and culture as a primary focus. Fregozo uses locations around his community as symbols of identity and a cultural lifestyle that has been carried down generation after generation. Fregozo straddles the line between design and pop culture in the development of his work. His intense works on canvas, paper, photography, and design are mediums for the development of his artwork.

Exhibition: Street Schooled exhibition, Ellsworth Artist Residency Program exhibition

Jacqueline Valenzuela (b. East Los Angeles, CA) received a BFA in Drawing and Painting from California States University Long Beach (2019). Her work has been exhibited throughout the greater Los Angeles area, including the South Gate Museum (South Gate), Brea Gallery (Brea), South Pasadena City Hall Gallery (Pasadena), The Mexican Center for Culture and Cinematic Arts of the Mexican Consulate (Los Angeles), ArtShare L.A. (Los Angeles), and most recently at Flatline Gallery (Long Beach) for, “Sitting on Chrome” an exhibition curated around the theme of exploring the different artists who have interconnected their art practices with their passion for lowriding.

Valenzuela is a multi-media artist whose practice is centered around her experiences as a woman within the Chicano world of lowriding. Her art practice reflects the deep roots she has planted in the lowrider community by bridging the gap between fine art and this underrepresented community

Exhibition: Street Schooled