Untethered Familiars | Annual Resident Artist Exhibition

On View: January 9, 2026 – February 14, 2026
Opening Reception: January 9, 2026, 6 – 9 pm
Open Studios and Resident Artist Information Session: February 6, 2026 6 – 8:30 pm

There’s a kind of magic that happens when artists share space—not just studio space, but the in-between spaces too. The hallways. The laundry room. The moments when you’re carrying your materials and catch a glimpse of someone else’s process through an open door.

Our seven resident artists—Edgar Reyes, Nicoletta Darita de la Brown, Bria Sterling-Wilson, Ayana Gordon, Candice Tavares, Jasmine Adams, and Ajee Hassan—are untethered in the most important sense: free to follow their individual practices wherever they need to go. Yet they’re also familiars to one another, companions in this strange and electric experiment of living and making under one roof. They see each other. They inspire each other, sometimes without even realizing it. Creative osmosis is real, and it’s happening here.

The familiar is what we know intimately—our materials, our rituals, the questions we return to again and again. But familiars are also something wilder: creatures with their own agency, guardians with their own wisdom. These artists work with that tension every day. They’re deeply individual, each asking hard questions about the work they want to put forth into the world, yet they’re shaped by proximity and care, by the thoughtful and meaningful disruptions that come from being in community.

Untethered Familiars is about that beautiful contradiction: the rebellious spirit of independent practice meeting the loveliness of shared inspiration. It’s about artists who are sovereign in their making yet connected by something more esoteric—the accumulated energy of people committed to their craft, to each other, to empathetic disruption and gorgeous risk-taking.

This program is a privilege. This group of artists is a gift. What they’re making here—both individually and in constellation—is electric.

—Joy Davis, Visual Arts Director & Curator

Artist Bios

Ajee Hassan

Baltimore native, Ajee Hassan, is a multi-disciplinary Beauty Artisan. Using the art of hair as her medium, her work is at the intersection of beauty and wellness. With extensive training in color application, cutting techniques, and skin-enhancing services, her aim is to empower individuals to step into their greatness — building their confidence and self-esteem through personalized styling education and self-care strategies. As an artist with a meticulous eye for cultivating beauty and overall wellness, she has founded Diverse Methodology – an artistry platform dedicated to amplifying her creative expression through the transformative power of beautification, with healing through art at its core.

Bria Sterling-Wilson

Bria Sterling-Wilson is a photographer and collage artist from Baltimore, Maryland. She received her B.F.A in Photography and Digital Arts from Towson University, Towson, MD in 2021. Sterling-Wilson uses found imagery, magazines, newspapers, and fabrics to construct alluring scenes, portraits, and interiors to express the black experience.

Sterling-Wilson has exhibited works in Sanquhar, Scotland, Brooklyn, New York, Los Angles, California, Atlanta, Georgia, Washington, D.C, and Baltimore, Maryland.

Sterling-Wilson has been featured in BmoreArt Magazine, Create! Magazine, Contemporary Collage Magazine, EBONY Magazine, and Black Collagists: The Book.

Jasmine Adams

Jasmine Adams, a Baltimore based artist (b. 1993 in Silver Spring, MD), has built a distinguished career as a painter, photographer, and digital artist. Her work explores the complexities of identity, particularly within the Black American experience, drawing from her imagination and everyday surroundings.

Edgar Reyes

Edgar Reyes: “Many of my projects are autobiographical and a reflection of my personal journey as an undocumented youth in the United States. My work focuses on the precious and difficult moments my family and community face. Overall my practice is inspired by our shared experiences and my passion to highlight connections between the art of our ancestors and the contemporary Mexican diaspora.”

Roo Taylor

Roo Taylor (b. 2003) is a Baltimore based artist originally from Denver. She received a BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art. She works in a combination of high flow acrylic paint and acrylic ink utilizing transparency to amplify colors within abstract landscapes and figures, aiming to draw parallels between the natural world and human relationships.

Ayana Gordon

Ayana Gordon (b. 1998) is a self-taught Antiguan-Haitian artist and photographer based in Baltimore, Maryland. Her work explores identity, heritage, and cultural storytelling, focusing on Caribbean and Haitian experiences. Through film photography, set design, and layered compositions, she traces the spiritual connections between people, land, and memory.

Ayana’s images have been recognized internationally, including as a finalist in the 2024 LensCulture Portrait Awards, and through features in Vogue Italia: Global Photovogue, Artsy, and The Guardian. Her work has been exhibited at the 2024 LA Art Show and presented publicly through LEDBaltimore’s city-wide art initiative. Additional features include Prazzel Magazine and BmoreArt.

Her practice is grounded in continuous exploration and honors ancestry, spirituality, and cultural pride. She treats her work as a living altar that celebrates Black identity, feminine strength, and the interconnectedness of place and memory, inviting viewers into a deeper dialogue about legacy, self-discovery, and community.

Nicoletta Daríta de la Brown

Nicoletta Daríta de la Brown (she/they) is an award-winning Panamanian-American interdisciplinary artist, curandera chamána, and wellness educator whose work bridges art, ritual, and embodied storytelling. Her performances and sculptural installations render spaces safe—celebrating playful exploration, healing, and authenticity while honoring lineage through contemporary expressions of ancestral ritual.

Her work has been presented by The Phillips Collection, The Hirshhorn Museum, The Smithsonian, The Walters Art Museum, The National Aquarium, and The Tribeca Film Festival.

De la Brown is Artist-in-Residence at the Creative Alliance and Baltimore School for the Arts, a 2026 Marble House Project Resident Artist, 2025 Vermont Studio Center Marshall Frankel Fellow, and MacDowell Fellow. Recognized as a thought leader at the intersection of art and wellness, she shares her practice through lectures, rituals, and workshops across museums and universities.

Candice Tavares

Candice Tavares is a self-taught wood artist from the suburbs of Philadelphia, PA. She received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Virginia and her Doctorate of Pharmacy from Howard University. None of her formal education has any connection to woodworking or fine art, but her experiences as a Black woman working in healthcare and existing in spaces that are not predominantly Black have absolutely shaped the way she sees the world and the art that she chooses put into it.

Candice primarily focuses on using wood as a natural medium to reflect on and celebrate the natural beauty of Black women. She places heavy emphasis on including a wide range of complexions and hair textures by incorporating multiple species, stains, and techniques to create images that feel representative to women across the diaspora. She hopes that Black women and children will walk away from her work feeling seen, valued, celebrated, and fortified. Reminded of their inherent beauty and value, and encouraged to love every part of themselves just as they are, just how God made them.