More About the Artists 

Freddie Bell is living in Hillsborough, NC and works out of his studio in the Eno Arts Mill. Their passion for creating has followed them to California and back and across careers in the arts and social work. Freddie finds inspiration in community and how we understand ourselves. Freddie received his BA in Art at Warren Wilson College in 2012. They have participated in group shows in Los Angeles and throughout North Carolina. Freddie was a 2022-23 Regional Emerging Artist Resident at ArtSpace in Raleigh, NC. Freddie is a 2023 recipient of the Snapdragon Fund Project Grant. Gender and identity have been common subjects and inspirations for Freddie’s work since undergraduate school, influenced by their lived experience. Freddie loves using color, shape, and varied repetition to reflect on identity. Currently their focus is on the relationship between grief and the body.

Eliza Redmann is a sculptor, architect, and founder of Folded Poetry design studio based in Durham. Eliza is originally from Minnesota, and moved to the Triangle in 2013 to complete my Masters of Architecture at NCSU College of Design. When a car accident upended health, personal life, and career as an architect, Eliza was forced to reinvent myself, finding a way to utilize creative potential for healing by creating art. 

Reneesha McCoy is a self taught artist who began her artistic practice in 2019. She works primarily with acrylics and gouache. Though in some of her works you’ll notice the additional exploration of various mediums like colored pencil, ink, and paint markers. Her playfulness with mixed media lends itself to the chaotic nature of life within and around the body. Reneesha’s artistic process involves studying the anatomy of the female form and challenging herself to present her interpretation in new and conceptual ways. Reneesha’s hope is that her work facilitates comfort and normalcy within moments of discomfort. Her works have been collected all around the world and have been featured in books and magazines. She has also participated in local and international exhibitions as well. Reneesha lives and works in North Carolina. 

Jen Palmer was born and raised in Southwestern Pennsylvania and currently resides in Savannah, Georgia. She studied foundations at the Columbus College of Art and Design and earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in studio art at Seton Hill University, where she also completed coursework in art therapy at the graduate level. Palmer earned a Master of Arts degree in digital photography from the Savannah College of Art & Design. As a multidisciplinary artist with disability and chronic pain and illness, Palmer uses traditional and new media in her practice to hold space and create expressions of radical hope. Her work has been featured by AI and NFT platforms, local newspapers and magazines, on podcasts, and published in Alternative Press Magazine. She has exhibited locally and internationally and participated in residencies with Sulfur Studios/Arts Southeast, You Are Here, and the Thrive Together Network. Palmer also facilitates Representations: A collaborative project encouraging womxn to take up space and affect the future at the intersection of art and technology.

Oami Powers is an American figurative artist raised in California & New Zealand who now calls Raleigh, NC home. She studied sculpture and painting in high school and graduated from the University of Canterbury with a B.A. in Art History and Classical Studies. She works from her studio at Artspace where she was Regional Emerging Artist in Residence in the spring of 2018. 

Susan Martin is a printmaker and teaching artist practicing in Raleigh, North Carolina. She specializes in small editions of traditionally made, hand-pulled prints, always one at a time. Having worked in her favored medium for over a decade, her definition of family, home and studio have had to remain fluid. Sometimes haltering, yet always creating, she remains grateful for life challenges, global excursions and personal exploration that have created a backbone for her imagery.

Desmal Purcell is an artist & professor that lives in the deep south on age-old family grounds with his loving wife, kids and more animals than he can count. It is here he contemplates time, place, family, memory, growth and loss. These themes repeatedly show up in Purcell’s work. Trying to make order out of chaos, Purcell works to distill these ideas through a range of different media. His most recent long term exploration is tied to labeling, categorizing and identifying the mythos of the deep south. This consists of a larger body of work Ethir, Elixir and Elements: A Periodic Table of Personal Roots Dug Deep and off shoot projects including Alchemical Impressions, Precious Elements and Primordial Mandala.

Natalia Torres Del Valle is an artist who works out of her studio in Hillsborough, NC and a 2023 Acadia National Park Artist-in-Residence. She is a Registered Expressive Arts Therapist through the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association. Natalia works alongside individuals in the community and within her private practice, Little House: Expressive Arts Therapy & Studio. Natalia is a member of Pigments Revealed International, Spilt Milk Gallery, the National Art Education Association, the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association, and the Durham Art Guild. She has been featured in the Orange County Art Commission’s The Underline, VoyageRaleigh Magazine, and All She Makes magazine.

Jean Gray Mohs was born in Greensboro, NC, and currently lives in Raleigh, NC with an open studio at Artspace downtown. Jean Gray received her BFA and MAT from Georgia Southern University. Her works have been exhibited at the Contemporary Art Museum, Artlink, Greenhill Gallery, the North Carolina Museum of Art, Duke University Hospital, Georgia, Lamar Dodd School of Art in Italy, and collaborated on a piece for Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. She has been an artist in residence at Level Retreat, Drake Island, Summerfield Farm, and Thrive Together. Jean Gray was a founding member of the Stillmoreroots group based out of Georgia for 20 years. She has received grants from the United Arts Council, Wake County Schools, and Georgia Rural Economic Development Center. Her works have been seen in Walter magazine, Southern Living, House, Traditional Home, House & Garden, Southern Home and more. You can listen in to more of her process on the Artist Mother Podcast, Artist Praxis, and the Women of Woodworking.