SaveArtSpace is pleased to present Whistling in the Dark a cross-media, tri-city, public art exhibition curated by Caledonia Curry (Swoon) and Gianni Lee. The selected artists are Megan Gabrielle Harris, Shanina Dionna, Cheryl Derricotte, Cydney Camp, George Ferrandi, Katie Kalkstein, Sasha Lynn, Elianel Clinton, and Judy Chicago.

These artists, along with Swoon and Gianni Lee, will be displayed on billboards in New York City, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. Billboards in each city will be installed the week of February 1, 2021, and the billboards will be on view for at least one month.

Founded in 2015, SaveArtSpace is a non-profit organization that works to create an urban gallery experience, launching exhibitions that address intersectional themes and foster a progressive message of social change. By placing culture over commercialism, SaveArtSpace aims to empower artists from all walks of life and inspire a new generation of young creatives and activists.

Selected Artists

Location: Flushing Ave & Forrest St, Brooklyn, NY

Megan Gabrielle Harris is a multi-disciplinary artist from Sacramento, California.  Her work is mostly comprised of drawings, paintings and photography.  M.G.H.’s desire to paint began at an early age, ignited by her father Thomas Harris whose paintings covered every wall in their home and continues to be heavily influenced by her father’s work and his Escapism style.   

The inspiration for her work comes from fashion photography, surreal landscapes and natural forms, stemming from her experiences working as a model for over ten years.  Women of color are the primary focus in her work.  She uses vibrant and rich color palettes in an attempt to create a light and airy atmosphere for her subjects, while depicting these female figures as independent and powerful which is the perception she has of the women in her community.

M.G.H.’s goal as an artist is to create dreamy and sublime escapes, not only as a form of self-therapy but also to inspire anyone who views her artwork. She received her B.A. in Art History from California State University, Sacramento in 2014 and is currently based in New York City.

Connect with Megan on Instagram at @megangabriellle.

Location: E Lehigh Ave & Aramingo Ave, Philadelphia, PA

Philadelphia Magazine recognized Shanina Dionna as the Philly artist "creating a positive space for mental health conversations.” Both a visual and performing artist, her art for social change practice is rooted in the exposure of her own experience with mental health challenges, including depression and recovery. Since 2011, her development of the "Embryo" art exhibition series has helped build a platform raising awareness with free admissions and access to wellness resources and professionals. Life-sized acrylic portraits, improv performances, dance/movement, botanical therapy and "safe space” installations all help convey her intent for communal wellness and healing. In 2016, Shanina Dionna helped found the youth art program, @artbudsphilly (on Instagram); and in 2018, she became one of twenty artists worldwide to receive the first-ever The Dean Collection 20 Grant presented by Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz. She is currently pursuing certification in Expressive Arts Therapy with the Person-Centered Expressive Arts Institute of Sonoma, California, due to graduate in April 2021.

Shanina will celebrate 10 years of their Embryo art exhibition series. Embryo has helped raise mental health awareness through the visual and performing arts since its inception. "Embryo X: The Continuous Now" is scheduled for opening night on March 6, 2021 (location pending).

Connect with Shanina on Instagram at @shaninadionna.

Location: Hollywood Blvd & Wilcox Ave, Los Angeles, CA

Cheryl Derricotte is a visual artist and her favorite mediums are glass and paper. Originally from Washington, DC, she lives and makes art in San Francisco, CA. She has an extensive background in the arts and community development. Cheryl holds the Master of Fine Arts from the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), the Master of Regional Planning from Cornell University and a B.A. in Urban Affairs from Barnard College, Columbia University.

In addition to SaveArtSpace, recent awards include the Villa San Francisco/French Consulate Micro-Residency (2020); Windgate Craft Residency at the Vermont Studio Center (2020/2021); Antenna Paper Machine Residency (New Orleans); San Francisco Individual Artist Commission, and the Puffin Foundation Grant, (all 2019/2020). She is also the recipient of the Hemera Foundation Tending Space Fellowship for ; the Rick and Val Beck Scholarship for Glass (both in 2017) and was an inaugural Emerging Artist at the Museum of the African Diaspora in 2015.

Identities shaped by home (or homelessness); natural beauty (or disasters), memories of happiness (or loss) inspire my artwork. This results in works on glass and paper. Both materials are translucent and seemingly fragile, yet they are hearty enough to survive the passage of time between civilizations. I make art from research. This type of inquiry also leads me not just to economic but also environmental concerns. Observations of current events, politics, and urban landscapes are my entry into these issues.

Most often I create work in series. Living on the Fence-Line (2020) is part of a series of work called Oil and Water. The art in this series looks at communities that live in the shadow of oil including California places like Richmond (pictured), Los Angeles and Manhattan Beach. Text is an important component of my artwork. I often say that I live under the tyranny of title. A phrase will get stuck in my head and I wrestle with it until an artwork is created. I am a visual storyteller. My work weaves personal and political geography to confront contemporary society’s relationship to place and equity.

“I stand for art and liberation. Public art is one of the brave spaces for difficult conversations—like the fact that over 16% of the US Black population lives near an oil refinery. That’s why I am so excited that SaveArtSpace selected my work to contribute to a brave conversation about environmental racism.” --Cheryl Derricotte

Connect with Cheryl on Instagram at @cherylderricottestudio.

Location: N 5th St & W Oxford St, Philadelphia, PA

Cydney Camp (b. 1994, Detroit) is an artist whose oil paintings and drawings embody the diversity of Black life. She imbues her works with an aura of power and tranquility through a vibrant color palette, often introducing elements of abstraction, forming dreamlike compositions. Many of her scenes reflect moments of peace among Black figures, positioning leisure as an act of protest against marginalization, particularly in regards to Black femininity. As a whole, her works engender a reality outside the exploitative extraction of the Black body that pervades our broader cultural ethos.

Camp has exhibited across Detroit and Michigan, including at K.O. Gallery, Norwest Gallery, Ann Arbor Art Center, Center for Detroit Arts & Culture, Detroit Fiber Works, and many more. She lives and works in Hamtramck, Detroit.

My practice in oil painting and drawing is founded on an investigation of what it means to exist as a Black person in America. My work posits leisure and luxury as radical in the face of a world that constantly demands labor, culture, and respectability from Black bodies, especially Black women. I collage scenes from my own life, and the lives of others, to depict Black, often femme, figures existing in realities untouched by pervasive misogynoir.

My work aims to dissolve the dissonance between vulnerability and strength: in the worlds of my paintings, nude women recline, exposed but wholly in control, and Black men lounge as they birdwatch in the park, completely undisturbed, creating a commentary on racialized power dynamics and the boundaries of respectability politics. These themes are amplified through my opulent color palettes and the incorporation of abstract compositional elements, resulting in scenes that are grounded in realism but imbued with an otherworldly quality that situates them as sites for healing and restorative futures.

Connect with Cydney on Instagram at @repunxel.

Location: Union Ave & South 4th Street, Brooklyn, NY

George Ferrandi is an American artist whose performance, installation and participatory projects address issues of vulnerability, impermanence, fallibility and spectacle, often through experimental approaches to narrative. Employing a unique humor and a deep sense of humanity, her work stimulates a rethinking of cultural assumptions. Her work has been presented at venerable institutions around the US and the world.

The drawing being featured by SaveArtSpace is a still for a short animated film introducing the Viennese iteration of a long-term, multi-disciplinary project called Jump!Star that George has been developing since 2015. The film was written, directed and animated by Teresa Distelberger, with music by Christian Amín Varkonyi and drawings by George Ferrandi. You can watch it on the jumpstar.love website.

George is publishing a special edition newspaper of her drawings and writings every month during 2021. You can subscribe to receive it in the actual mail through her website: georgeferrandi.com.

Connect with George on Instagram at @Jumpstarlove and @futurenorthstars.

Location: N Delaware Ave & Ellen St, Philadelphia, PA

Katie Kalkstein explores the relationship between people, landscape, and the changing environment with its inherent mysteries and dualities. She is represented by Anzenberger Gallery, Vienna, Austria and Walker Fine Art, Denver, CO; and has shown at the Center for Fine Art Photography, Tilt Gallery, Colorado Photographic Arts Center, Medium Photography Festival, and the Yixian and Lishui Photography Festivals in China. Public art works include The Fence by United Photo Industries/Photoville. She has also been published several times in Diffusion magazine, and was a Critical Mass Top 200 Artist in 2014. She received her degree from Savannah College of Art and Design and has taught at Art Students League in Denver.

This work represents the intersection of climate change, power, and systemic injustice impacting basic needs to sustain life. The earth breathes in relation to the body. With these interconnections, it becomes even more urgent we work towards a world where all can thrive.

This billboard is part of a series to investigate our current systems of connection and disconnection from the earth and one another, the failed language to save ourselves from environmental damage, and the active hope and resilience of nature to adapt to our interventions.

Connect with Katie on Instagram at @Katiekphotoart.

Location: Flushing Ave & Waverly Ave, Brooklyn, NY

Sasha Lynn Roberts is an 18 year old visual artist living in a Brooklyn, NY. She identifies as a LGBTQ+ black woman, and currently attends NYU TISCH School of the Arts. She studies technological interactivity in the arts, combining her knowledge of code with design principles. Sasha focuses her artwork on the topic of identity and how it projects itself into the world. Her goal as an artist intertwines with her love for social justice and the movement towards equity. She is deeply rooted in my community issues and global issues such as climate change, the wage gap and systemic racism. Some of her art simply seeks to highlight and provide representation to minority groups, and others speak to an issue directly using surrealism. She enjoys working with acrylic paint, doing digital art, and using found objects like hair and nails to enhance her artwork.

Ever since she was young, going to NEST+M, her community cultivated her love for the arts. She was taught how to sew freehand and with a sewing machine by her grandmother- which aided her in using different materials in her art. The creativity shown by her talented friends and support from her loving family never let her interest in art as a career die.

In 2016, (Age 13), her work was featured in the MET for the PSART competition. The work selected was a charcoal and pencil drawing of a baby peacock. In 2019, Sasha flexed her writing skills- winning a Gold and Silver Key from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards for two pieces of memoir. She additionally was featured in the MET for a second time in 2019 for a conté crayon self portrait.

Connect with Sasha on Instagram at @lynn.dream.

Flushing Ave & Evergreen Ave, Brooklyn, NY

Elianel Clinton is a portrait and documentary photographer, based in New Jersey where he was born and raised. Eli received his Bachelors degree of Fine Arts; majoring in Photography and The Digital Image with a minor in History of Art from the Fashion Institute of Technology. His work focuses primarily on the subjects of identity and diversity informed by his own multicultural background. With experience working in and out of studio, Elianel’s work has been seen in publications such as Vogue Italia, Teeth magazine, Cake magazine and Bleu magazine.

“Silence”

Back in 2018 I was heavily inspired by a news story that came out about Giovanni Melton, a 14 year old gay teenager who was shot by his own father. According to his foster mother, the father, Wendell Melton, shot Giovanni because he was against his son’s sexual orientation. Giovanni’s foster mother stated “he’d (Wendell Melton) rather have a dead son than a gay son.”

Today, just as in the past, many people within the LGBTQ community are being killed, harassed and treated unfairly simply because of who they choose to love or what gender, if any, they identify as. With Giovanni’s story in mind, I set out to create a photographic fashion essay specifically for the queer youth of today: a visual message of hope and hardship, something to inspire them to be themselves and to be proud of who they are, a message letting them know that they are not alone in this world and that many others share similar experiences with them.

In my work I strive to get past the cliché ideas of contemporary fashion and gender conformity which dictates what a man or woman should or shouldn’t wear. With this project I chose to collaborate specifically with people of color as I also wanted to shine a light on the diversity we don’t see enough of in the industry today. I want more queer black boys and girls, as well as Hispanics of all shapes and sizes to see themselves in this body of work and let them know that one, we need to stay strong and two, we stick together.

As Eli continues building his practice, he works towards reaching other culturally diverse people around the world, pushing gender boundaries and informing the upcoming generations that it's okay to be different.

Video Piece: https://vimeo.com/305286374

Videographer: Hamadi Price

Connect with Elianel on Instagram at @elianelclintonphoto.

Location: N Highland Ave & Willoughby Ave, Los Angeles, CA

Location: Hamilton Pl & 12th St, Brooklyn, NY

Judy Chicago is an artist, author, feminist, educator, intellectual and general 𝒃𝒂𝒅𝒂𝒔𝒔 whose career now spans almost six decades.

Connect with Judy on Instagram at @judy.chicago.

Curators

Location: Hamilton Ave & Centre St, Brooklyn, NY

Caledonia Curry, aka Swoon, is a Brooklyn-based street artist. Drawing on both realistic and fantastical elements, Curry has been transforming the world with her immersive installations, wheatpaste portraits, and community-based social justice projects for the last two decades.  

While Callie’s work has adorned the walls of more classical institutions—including New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and the Tate Modern—her overarching aim is always to create accessible art that transports audiences while simultaneously shedding light on pressing social and environmental issues. Most recently, she has begun exploring visual storytelling through film and animation.

You can connect with Swoon on Instagram at @SwoonHQ

Location: N Normandie Ave & Fountain Ave (1246 N Normandie Ave), Los Angeles, CA

Gianni Lee is a multidisciplinary visual artist utilizing diverse mediums in fashion, fine art and music. 

Lee’s multimedia work combines materials including painting, drawing, photography against a post-apocalyptic and futuristic landscape. Gianni has two distinct styles of intricate compositions that populate the fine art world as well as street art. His street-art incorporates colorful skeletal figures while is fine art focuses on alien-like subjects to explore the technological, political, social and racial climate in America while depict the plight of black people. 

“My subject matter is based on an on going story with real characters that I created,” says Gianni. “I decontextualize, reconstruct and regurgitate everything I see and feel on the canvas based on concepts, motifs and issues that mirror society. I make sure to explore the technological, political, social and racial climate in America while painting a post-apocalyptic and futuristic landscape.”

As Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition Artist-in-Residence, he presented his inaugural solo-exhibition “Why Don’t You Hear Me?” (2017). And in 2018 he presented his follow up “They Sat Back, They Let it Happen” in Los Angeles. His permanent street installations are currently on view in the streets of Paris, London, Bulgaria, New York City, Cuba, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia, just to name a few. 

Lee lives and works in New York and Los Angeles.

You can connect with Gianni on Instagram at @GianniLee

Participating Organizations

Founded in 2015, SaveArtSpace is a non-profit organization that works to create an urban gallery experience, launching exhibitions that address intersectional themes and foster a progressive message of social change. By placing culture over commercialism, SaveArtSpace aims to empower artists from all walks of life and inspire a new generation of young creatives and activists.

Create Art for Earth Artists Judy Chicago and Swoon have teamed up with Jane Fonda and her environmental initiative Fire Drill Fridays, in partnership with Greenpeace, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., and Serpentine Galleries, London.

We call out to you to join us in creating art for the Earth; a global creative response to the climate crisis and the pandemic afflicting us. Create images that offer an alternative vision; one that protects the planet and all living creatures, one that promotes equity and justice for ALL.

Make art. Sing songs, create performances, recite poems. Do this alone or with your families on any kind of material that is available to you. Share what you create via the pathways we have established. Demonstrate the many ways that the arts can heal, lead, transform and make change.

Create Art For Earth

You can hashtag with Create Art For Earth on Instagram at #CreateArtForEarth