Artist-in-Residence
Without a doubt, artistic production has served as a major means by which individuals and communities have presented their cultural worlds, critiqued those worlds, and worked to enhance and improve those worlds. Houston serves as a major location for this type of activity. Motivated by the rich social-cultural geography that is this city, Houston is a hub of important artistic work that speaks directly to some of the important concerns that define CERCL. Mindful of this CERCL has collaborated with local artists and has brought to Houston and Rice outstanding and important contributors to the artistic traditions defining the United States.
The Artist-in-Residence Program is meant to further enhance CERCL's collaboration with and presentation of the arts. The goal is to represent the manner in which the arts serve as tools for and representations of critical thinking on pressing concerns, effective communications strategies for expressing those concerns, and platforms for engaging those concerns. We expect to build a relationship with our Artist-in-Residence that will allow collaboration on creative projects in the future.
Gabriel Martinez
2023 - 2024 Artist-in-Residence
Gabriel Martinez was born near an atomic blast crater in the New Mexico desert. He graduated with an MFA from Columbia University and attended the Whitney Independent Study Program before moving to Houston as a Core Fellow and artist-in-residence at Project Row Houses. He is the founding director of Alabama Song and the author of A Student’s Guide to Stealing.
Follow Gabriel to learn more about his other exciting projects.
Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton
2021 - 2022 Artist-in-Residence
Writer, Educator, Activist, former Poet Laureate, and the owner of Deep Ink LLC, D.E.E.P.’s work includes a range of work including poems, plays, libretti, short stories, essays, teaching, public speaking, and curriculum design.
Anticipated works include a community writing workshop centered on personal mythology (modelled after her forthcoming book Black Chameleon), an art-based project that interprets local mythologies into visual art, and a community exhibit highlighting community and professional artists.
View Myth-Making in America- TEDX Houston Women
Follow Deborah to learn more about her other exciting projects.
Lanecia Rouse Tinsley
2020 - 2021 Artist-in-Residence
Multidisciplinary visual artist based in Houston, TX, and the owner/creator of LAR Art Studio. Lanecia’s portfolio includes a range of work in abstract painting, photography, teaching, writing, and speaking.
Contemporary Artists' Education centers the studio practices, work, and perspectives of 6 Houston-based artists. Each artist participated in Art of the City series interview with Lanecia and provided one creative prompt based on their studio practice that invites participants to explore a contemporary social or political reality through artmaking.
Follow Lanecia to learn more about her other exciting projects.
Harrison Guy
2019 - 2020 Artist-in-Residence
Artistic Director of Urban Souls Dance Company (USDC), an award winning company that's treading new ground and making its voice heard throughout the community and nationally.
Black Bodies in White Spaces: A Performance Ritual in engagement with the Moody Center for the Arts exhibit, Radical Revisionists: Contemporary African Artists Confronting Past and Present and featured student and community participants.
In 2024 a performance of Black Bodies in White Spaces was part of Souls of Black Houston, a dance concert performed by Urban Souls Dance Company honoring Black History Month at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts.
Racism in the Arts: A conversation with Harrison Guy, is a conversation series in collaboration with community organization Center for the Healing of Racism.
photo by Pin Lim
Artist-in-Residence Project Pages
