THE STUDIO MUSEUM IN HARLEM has thrown its support behind three promising new artists working across diverse disciplines. The museum announced the selection of Cameron Granger, Jacob Mason-Macklin, and Qualeasha Wood as 2021-22 artists-in-residence. The group is the latest to participate in the germinal program, which has provided material and institutional support to artists of African and Afro-Latinx descent since 1968.
Ohio is well represented among the artists. A video artist, Granger was born in Cleveland and currently lives and works in Columbus. Born in Columbus, Mason-Macklin makes paintings “driven by a fascination with media from the Soul Power era in the United States.” Meanwhile, Wood is a Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist who often expresses themself through textiles.
From left: 2021-22 Artists-in-Residence Jacob Mason-Macklin, Qualeasha Wood, and Cameron Granger. | Images: Photo by Ally Caple; Courtesy Qualeasha Wood; Courtesy Cameron Granger
The cohort is the second to participate in the residency under special precautions due to the COVID-19 pandemic and will begin their residencies remotely, with critical aspects of the program remaining intact. The artists will receive guidance and professional development from the museum, including studio visits with museum curators and other art professionals, and support for any research needs.
“We’re excited to welcome Cameron Granger, Jacob Mason-Macklin, and Qualeasha Wood to the distinguished roster of the Studio Museum’s artists in residence,” Thelma Golden, director and chief curator of the Studio Museum said in a statement.
“The Artist-in-Residence program is foundational to the institution and has a deep impact on the careers of emerging artists. After five decades of providing institutional support for working artists, developing leading scholarship around their practices, and presenting their work to new audiences, we are able to reflect on and take great pride in how the program has consistently upheld the careers of so many artists of African descent.”
Introducing the 2021-22 Artists in Residence:
CAMERON A. GRANGER, “All the things I ever learned,” 2019. | © Cameron A. Granger. Courtesy the artist, Photo by Luke Stetner
Cameron A. Granger
Born 1993, Cleveland, Ohio; Currently based in Columbus, Ohio
Granger came up in Cleveland, Ohio, alongside his mother, Sandra, inheriting her love of soul music and habit of apologizing too much. A video artist, Granger uses his work both as a site for memory-making and a means to strategize new ways of remembrance in this age of mass media. His recent projects include “Everybody’s got a little light under the sun,” a free food and short film program made in collaboration with Willowbeez Soul Veg and the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio, and “The Get Free Telethon” a 24-hour livestream community fundraiser for Columbus groups Black Queer Intersectional Collective, Healing Broken Circles, and Columbus Freedom Coalition, sponsored by Red Bull Arts. A 2017 alumnus of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Granger has exhibited his work at The Bemis Center, Omaha, Neb. (2021); Ortega y Gasset Projects, Brooklyn, N.Y. (2019); and Platform Rf, Vaasa, Finland (2019).
JACOB MASON-MACKLIN, “Smoker in the Woods 2,” 2020. | © Jacob Mason-Macklin, Courtesy the artist
Jacob Mason-Macklin
Born 1995, Columbus, Ohio; Lives and works in Queens, N.Y.
Mason-Macklin’s work explores the collision between the image and material. Utilizing archival images and personal forms, Mason-Macklin investigates new modes and subjects in an attempt to channel a current that is raw, murky, and desirous. His practice has been driven by a fascination with media from the Soul Power era in the United States. Distorting screenshots of Soul Train set designs, stills from Blaxploitation films, and cover art for mid-20th century R&B and funk albums such as James Brown’s “Hell” (1974) and Marvin Gaye’s “I Want You” (1976), Mason-Macklin uses slashing, cutting, and undulating brushstrokes to create a standoff between the corporeal and the imaged in order to simultaneously embrace and unsettle motifs of libido and violence typified in counterculture iconography. Mason-Macklin is a 2016 alumnus of the Yale-Norfolk Summer School of Art and a 2019 alumnus of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. His work has been exhibited at Page (NYC) (with Ryan Huggins, New York, N.Y. (2021); Interstate Projects, Brooklyn, N.Y. (2020); No Place Gallery, Columbus, Ohio (2020); and Jeffrey Stark Gallery (with Cudelice Brazelton), New York, N.Y. (2017).
QUALEASHA WOOD, “Cult Following,” 2018 (jacquard woven with glass seed beads, 51 X 74 inches / 129.54cm X 187.96cm). | © Qualeasha Wood. Courtesy Cooper Cole, Toronto
Qualeasha Wood
Born 1996, Long Branch, N.J.; Lives and works in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Wood combines traditional craft and contemporary digital materials inspired by a familial relationship to textiles, queer craft, Microsoft Paint, and internet avatars. Their work engages questions of the place, purpose, and hope for the nonontological Black queer female body. Wood holds a BFA in printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA in photography from the Cranbrook Academy of Art. In 2021, they were invited to create a trunk for Louis Vuitton’s 200th birthday. Wood has exhibited at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London (2021); CANADA, New York (2021); Kendra Jayne Patrick for Metro Pictures, New York (2021); the Trout Museum of Art, Appleton, Wisc. (2020); NADA Miami Beach at Kendra Jayne Patrick, Miami (2020); New Image Art, Los Angeles (2020); Cooper Cole, Toronto, Canada (2019); and Gluon Gallery, Milwaukee, Wisc. (2019).
The residency period is October 2021 through September 2022, culminating with a group exhibition at MoMA PS1. Since 2019, the artist-in-residency exhibitions have been presented at MoMA PS1, part of a collaboration between the two museums while the Studio Museum’s new building on 125th Street is under construction.
Granger, Mason-Macklin, and Wood are joining a legacy of more than 150 artists. Alum of the Studio Museum’s Artist-in-Residence program are some of the most critically acclaimed artists active today, including Frank Stewart, David Hammons, Maren Hassinger, Kerry James Marshall, Julie Mehretu, Sanford Biggers, Kehinde Wiley, Mickalene Thomas, Wangechi Mutu, Simone Leigh, Meleko Mokgos, Titus Kaphar, Adam Pendleton, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Lauren Halsey, Jordan Casteel, and Tschabalala Self. CT
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