Greensboro Project Space is pleased to present its 3rd Annual Summer Studios: Arts on Site! student residency program. This residency program will assist in educating students that GPS can also act as makerspace, where they can play, experiment, take creative risks, and develop their artistic voice.

Designed to support UNCG undergraduate student artists (BA + BFA) striving to develop, adapt, and/or reinvent their creative process and to promote artistic growth and development, artists are afforded two-weeks of uninterrupted research and development, coupled with financial support and public presentational platforms to share their creative work. The residency’s mission is to be an adaptive space to build a sustaining art community for our UNCG students so their creativity and connection to the Greensboro community thrives. 

For the UNCG undergraduate student with Junior or Senior status who is interested in pursuing this opportunity, the Summer Studios Application is now officially open until March 16th, 2025. Please find more information and the link to the submission form in your UNCG email inbox or email greensboroprojectspace@gmail.com to receive the link directly. 

August Cohort

Constantine Sotos (BFA Printmaking and Drawing) plans to use several mediums, such as charcoal, ink, metal, linoleum, and photographs to explore his experience of living and growing up in Lumberton, NC. Lumberton has always been the city that his mind wanders to and he plans to assemble a space as a tribute to this place which, out of pure luck, he has since moved from. There will be several pieces of debris from Lumberton placed around the space to bring any viewer into a different environment/state of mind. Prior to the two weeks at GPS, he will record the people and places of Lumberton, as well as gather materials from around the town.

Laura Herandez (BFA Painting) intends to investigate the relationships between familial connections that people could possibly have that are heavily focused on Hispanic/Latino backgrounds through painting. This research will be conducted by comparing multiple experiences from different perspectives and delving on how these links might be based on other outside hardships that individuals could go through that can cause these relationships to transpire. This subjected would be incorporated through works in symbolic visuals or icons that will be deliberately ambiguous at the surface. Research will span from documentaries, social media, other’s experiences, and so on.

Melissa Ferguson (BFA Sculpture and Ceramics) will continue an exploration of movement and sound in conjunction with viewer interaction. She plans to experiment with different materials (wood, metal, and found objects) at a large scale and envision a room in which movement through will create a variety of noises. Using an armature to secure and hang items of varying materials and sizes at different lengths, floor fans will also be used to activate the space when no one is in it.

Chloe Rush (BFA Drawing) will investigate how two portraits set in her inventive universe are in conversation with one another, which draw upon her research interests. She draws black people in an Afro-futuristic Southern universe that she invented, by using drawing mediums to explore the complexity of the multitudes of black identity in the South. Through these images she examines what defines “normal” in the context of growing up between two different classes in the South while challenging the logic of limiting stereotypes that pertain to black bodies to build new truths outside of the dominant narrative. She plans to experiment with defining what is considered “not normal” in the black south and shine a light on these “abnormalities.”

May Cohort

Shaye Scales (BFA Painting and Arts Administration) is inspired to play around with the idea of testing her audience and bringing attention to the discomfort of quiet spaces through diving into her interest in site-specific installation. She will do so by exploring and experimenting with materials such as yarn, string, water, and recycled or found material. Three-dimensional work allows her to almost become a part of the work. It becomes a physical emotion in the round. She enters this new process with curiosity, to see where the installation will take her, knowing she will continue to paint, yet she would like to merge these two mediums together; switching from 2D and 3D keeps her curious and always creating. 

Hayden Stella (BFA Painting) plans to explore his creative influences of the human body and intimate spaces through painting. He seeks to create a visual language that conveys subtle hints of homosexuality within his work. He is interested in exploring the tension between the strength and vulnerability of the power of intimacy, through the interplay of the body and fabric and draped clothing. As a gay man, he hopes to challenge traditional ideas of masculinity and sexuality through the beauty of being.

Margo Ha (BFA Printmaking and Drawing) is interested in the concept of fleeting perceptions garnered through a contradiction in traditional means of human connection. What can be gained through observation alone? How can she paint a perceptual portrait? She will be collecting an “archive” of individuals as a spectator - collecting references from observed conversation, video footage, and her own personal interpretations of others. She will be using this material to compile visual media and create a series of paintings, text truisms, and video installations that place viewers in an environment that forces them to “get to know '' strangers as a spectator. She will also begin to explore the relationship between literacy and visual art and how, as a poet, she can incorporate that into her visual practices.

Alaina Hooks (BFA Art Education) plans to create projects which represent issues she is passionate about and for which she can advocate for certain individuals. Textiles and soft sculpture work is very interesting to her and will be her primary source of mediums. She will make interactive pieces to allow viewers and participants to experience the artwork by using their sense of touch. She finds importance in making art accessible to everyone. She intends to include the visually impaired and blind population which live in and around Greensboro to come and experience her creations. 

Oliver Coria (he/him; sculpture) experimented with creating an installation by covering the ceiling, floor, walls, and symbolically appropriate objects with the artificial grass, in a body of work called “American Homeowners Association,” an exposition of obsessive appearances through obsessive lawn care.

Anna (AK) Deese (any except she/her; art history/social practice) used social practice methodologies to meet with locals and listen to their stories, while simultaneously drawing charcoal and pastel portraits of them.

Christina Hall (she/her; photography) experimented with building sculptures out of natural materials sourced nearby GPS and, in the community, and pair these sculptures with photographs drawing attention to the environmental issue of plastic bag litter.

Amiah Jones (she/her; painting) worked with a model to paint two sides of the same person as a diptych. The content of each side will be determined by the model, rather than the artist, based on how they choose to represent themselves.

Ernest Kroi (he/him; drawing/painting) worked on writing and illustrating a series of three children's stories about the absurd but morally innocent adventures of Cat and Owl, two regally and eccentrically clad friends who live in a treehouse in the forest of Clovernook above the seafaring town of Doverbrook.

Jasper Rutledge (he/him; painting) began a body of paintings and mixed-media works addressing themes of identity and belonging, particularly as a queer person who grew up in the American South. 

Ashe Smith (she/they; sculpture/ceramics) created a space that can be healing, by working with found objects from nearby GPS and the community to create an installation that focuses on anxieties and mental illness.

Abigail Weatherholtz (she/her; painting) explored the collaboration of traditional fine arts and sewing crafts in the context of couture as a painter, working towards the possibility of creating garments made from paintings – a three-dimensional canvas for (semi-) practical wear.