EXERCISES
The Exercises For Emerging Artists
Launched in March 2004, Transformer’s annual Exercises For Emerging Artists is a peer critique & mentorship program created to support DC based emerging artists at critical points or crossroads in their professional growth and creative development.
Now in its 21st year, this annual spring mentorship program acts as an accelerated MFA course for DC area based artists, providing them with intensive, bi-weekly peer and mentor critiques led by local, national and international arts leaders as they create new work.
Focusing on a different artistic discipline each year, the Exercises culminates in a summer exhibition / exhibition series for the public to engage with artworks created through the program.
past Exercises:
E21: A Different Horizon Atlas:
Collaboratively Mapping Queer Utopias
This year’s artistic disciple focus & theme will be building queer utopias through digital and physical processes - an extension of A Different Horizon Atlas, a project created by artist Jaimes Mayhew in collaboration with a variety of different individuals and communities.
Featured Artists: Clay Scofield, Lin Hoernher, MC Coble, Niki Afsar, Lane Timothy Speidel
Lead Mentor: Jaimes Mayhew
E20: PRINTMAKING
Am I the Past, Am I the Future
Emerging printmaking artists explore new techniques and collaboratively create a new body of work to be presented in a group exhibition: Am I the Past, Am I the Future.
Featured Artists: Jeanette Bolden, Korey Richardson, Shyama Kuver, Varvara Tokareva
Lead Mentor: Rose Jaffe
Guest Mentors: John Fleissner, Gretchen Schmernerhorn, Imar Hutchins
E19: Artistic Interventions
Artists explore artistic interventions in their myriad forms and interpretations.
Featured Artists: Chris Combs, Adele Kenworthy, Vonne Napper, Jordana Rubenstein-Edberg
Lead Mentor: Dawne Langford
Guest Mentors: Monica Jahan Bose, Mel Chin, Philippa Hughes, Mark Strandquist, and Naoko Wowsugi
E18: Performance Art
Performance-based artists debut new performances, live in the public sphere.
Featured Artists: Alexander D’Agostino, Imogen-Blue Hinojosa, Katie Macyshyn, Sedna, and Sifu Sun
Lead Mentor: Hoesy Corona
Guest Mentors: Ashley Dehoyos, Veronica Peña, Ada Pinkston, and Keioui Keijaun Thomas
E17: Zines
Zine and DIY publishing artists create new publications & podcast series in collaboration with Paper Cuts.
Featured Artists: Ayana Zaire Cotton, Jennifer Lillis, Athena Naylor, Late Comeback Press (Rachna Soun and Caroline Kim), Evyan Roberts, and Julie Sheah
Lead Mentor: Christopher Kardambikis (Paper Cuts & George Mason University)
Guest Mentors: #Blkgrlswurld ZINE (Christina Long & Courtney Long), Erica Federhen (Ipsy Bipsy Studio), Malaka Gharib, Adam Griffiths, Monica Johnson, Adriana Monsalve, and Risolve Studio (Lyndsey Burke & Sebastian Burke)
E16: The Revolution Will Be Televised
Artists explore video as a medium for socially conscious commentary.
Featured Artists: Maps Glover, Alexis Gomez, Paula Martinez, and Tam-anh Nguyen
Lead Mentor: Plakooke (Rachel Debuque & Justin Plakas)
Guest Mentors: Mark Beasley, Larry Cook, Leigh Davis, Jaimes Mayhew, Naoko Wowsugi, and Transformer staff
E15: Fiber Arts
Fiber and textile artists explore topics of technical production, historical relevance, gender, and identity through fiber art.
Featured Artists: Aliana Grace Bailey, Rachel Schechtman, Dulcina Abreu, and Alanna Reeves
Lead Organizer: Alanna Reeves
Guest Mentors: Dominie Nash, John Paradiso, Julia Kwon, John Chaich, Ramekon O’Arwisters, Jesse Harrod, and Transformer staff
E14: GRRRL POWER
In partnership with DC-based organization Girl Power Meetups (GPM) and focusing on supporting and empowering young women in the arts, E14 brought together multiple generations of female (and female-identifying) artists, curators, cultural producers and activists to support, educate, connect and collaborate creatively.
Founded in the fall of 2015 by then 22-year old artist and DC-native, Samera Paz, and ran by women of color, GPM is a movement based in Washington D.C. that aims to bring young women together to support, educate and connect.
E13: Discourse
DC based emerging writers explore critical arts discourse, criticism, and alternative publishing platforms.
Featured Artists: Eames Armstrong, Ikram Lakhdhar, Christine Bang, Ani Bradberry, and Martina Dodd
Guest Mentors: Holly Bass, Freelance Writer/Poet (Washington, DC); Philip Kennicott, Chief Art Critic of The Washington Post (Washington, DC); Cara Ober, Founding Editor of BmoreArt (Baltimore, MD); Hunter Braithwaite, Founding Editor of Miami Rail (Miami/New York; Amanda Keeley, Founder of Exile Books (Miami, FL); Charlie Tatum, Editorial and Communications Director, Pelican Bomb (New Orleans, LA); Rainey Knudson, Founding Editor of GlassTire (Houston, TX); and Jessica Lynne, Co-Founder of Arts.Black (Brooklyn, NY)
E12: Social Practice
Artists interested in pursuing social change and social engagement through their work explore topics of femininity, critical pedagogy, urban planning, and visibility through a series of public actions and social interventions.
Featured Artists: Amy Hughes Braden, Margo Elsayd, Kunj, and Joseph Orzal
Guest Mentors: Kenneth Bailey (Design Studio for Social Intervention - DS4SI) and DC-based artist Patrick McDonough, with Transformer staff
E11: CODA
Artists working within the discipline of sound art present a final exhibition in collaboration with VA-based gallery, Artisphere, marking the first off-site exhibition resulting from Transformer’s annual Exercises for Emerging Artists series.
Featured Artists: Alex Braden, Emily Francisco, E. Jane, and Ian McDermott
Lead Mentor: Ryan Holladay (Artisphere’s New Media Curator)
Guest Mentors: Alberto Gaitán, John Henry Blatter, and Christine Sun Kim, with Transformer’s Exhibitions & Gallery Coordinator Julia Young
E10: Conceptual Art
Artists explore concepts related to appropriation, linguistics & communication, and identity through conceptual and physical means.
Featured Artists: Adrian Parsons, Jane Claire Remick, and chukwumaa
Lead Mentor: Kathryn Cornelius
Guest Mentors: Alberto Gaitán, Rebecca Goyette, and Phyllis Klein of FabLab, with E10 Coordinator Eames Armstrong, and Transformer Executive & Artistic Director Victoria Reis
E9: Design - Mass Fad Discharge
Emerging graphic designers explore themes of visual language fads and over-consumption and resulting constipation.
Featured Artists: Shawn Moriarty, Christie Liberatore, and Noelle Weber
Lead Mentor: Maria Habib (Senior Director of Design at the Corcoran Gallery of Art)
Guest Mentors: Drew Mitchell (President of Fathom Creative), Sarah Tanguy (Curator for ART in Embassies US Department of State), and Matthew Stevenson (Senior Art Director of Fathom Creative), with Natalie Cheung, artist and Exhibitions Manager at Transformer
E8: Sculpture
Emerging sculptors present new work in each of the artists' first DC solo exhibitions.
Featured Artists: Oreen Cohen, Sean Lundgren, and Lindsay Rowinski
Lead Mentor: Joe Hicks
Guest Mentors: Kyan Bishop, Mary Early, Laurel Lukaszewski, and Ledelle Moe
E7: Tetrad
Artists explore themes of artistic process, personal history, character study, and the struggle for perfection through various incarnations of drawing, painting, and animation.
Featured Artists: Reuben Breslar, Jennifer DePalma, Adam Dwight, and Treva Elwood
Lead Mentor: Page Carr
Guest Mentors: Billy Colbert, artist; Molly Springfield, artist; and Andrea Pollan, Director of Curator's Office
E6: In Situ
Artists explore notions of communication, commodity, transformation, and situation through time-based media, employing video as well as digital animation techniques, and utilizing installation practices that made the way they display their work essential to the work itself.
Featured Artists: Jeremy Haik, Clive Leung, Erik Loften, and Ding Ren
Guest Curator: Brandon Morse
E5: Rangefinder
Highlighting experimental uses of photography, artists create new works through a variety of photographic processes including screen printing, light painting, multiple exposure Polaroid’s, and photographic renderings.
Featured Artists: Kristina Bilonick, Michael Matason, Jillian Pichocki, and Bryan Whitson
Guest Mentors: Jason Zimmerman, visual artist; Frank Day, photographer; Andy Grundberg, curator, art critic, and the Corcoran College of Art + Design’s Administrative Chair of Photography; and Andrea Pollan, of Curator’s Office & independent curator and gallerist
Guest Curator: Lisa McCarty
E4: Station to Station
Culminating in a series of week-long, individual exhibitions, the artists present new works in video, sound, mixed media performance, and conceptual installation.
Featured Artists: Rebecca C. Adams, Carolina Mayorga, Rob Parrish, and Fereshteh Toosi
Guest Curator: Niels Van Tomme
E3: Painters
Discussing the challenges they face as artists, the inspiration that helps propel them forward, as well as their artistic intentions and goals, artists develop new works presented at Transformer. The culminating exhibition featured a combination of finished bodies of work, works in progress and the beginning of new series that the artists will continue to explore.
Featured Artists: Brent Baumgartner, Christopher Lee, Piero Passacantando, and Lisa Marie Thalhammer
Guest Mentors: Transformer co-Founder and Advisory Council Member Jayme McLellan, Transformer's Executive Director Victoria Reis, curators and gallerists Andrea Pollan of Curator's Office and Leigh Conner of Conner Contemporary Art, artist Jeff Spaulding, and artist/collector Giorgio Furioso
E2: Carving A Path
Focusing on the specific needs and concerns of emerging artists in their mid to late 20's, the artists also participated in a series of professional development workshops for the grant awardees of the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities' Young Artist Program held at Transformer.
Featured Artists: Djakarta, Ginger Farnham, and Nathan Manuel
Guest Mentors: Artists Vesna Pavlovic, Ken Ashton, and Trish Tillman, and curator Sarah Tanguy
E1: Contemplating Process
Transformer proudly presents the launch of its peer critique and mentorship program for emerging artists.
Featured Artists: Esther Hidalgo, Lara Oliveira, Katherine Radke, Christopher Saah, and Dylan Scholinski
Transformer's Exercises Advisory Council: Ken Ashton, Jayme McLellan, Dan Steinhilber, and Trish Tillman