Past Residents
Past Resident2023: The Kettering Family Foundation
Levon Kafafian
Levon Kafafian is a Detroit-based Armenian-American artist working primarily with textile. Through weaving Kafafian assembles narrative threads of costume, artifact, ritual and installation into stories about possible worlds and potential futures. Their woven fabrics become portals to these other worlds, generating writing that influences future work. They infuse their stories and cloth with future ancestral practice, hybridity and magic, often collaborating toward collective visions.
Levon Kafafian has exhibited work at Stamps Gallery, University of Michigan; Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit; and Arab American National Museum, all in Michigan, among others.
Events & Exhibitions
2023 Spring Open Studios
April 21–April 22, 2023
Levon Kafafian, The Summoner, 2021, fiber and media, dimensions variable.
Levon Kafafian, The Summoner, 2021, fiber and media, dimensions variable.
Levon Kafafian, Vanagad, the Obsidian Spirit, 2021, fiber and media, dimensions variable.
Levon Kafafian, Once There Was, Once There Wasn't, 2019, fiber and media, installation, dimensions variable.
Levon Kafafian, Rite of Wild Magic, 2020, fiber, 72 × 12 in. (182.88 × 30.48 cm).
Residents from United States
Past Resident2023: The Puffin Foundation, Dimitri Offengenden, Artist Relief
Kahori Kamiya
In her practice, Kahori Kamiya examines her Japanese identity and womanhood, reflecting on issues of racial discrimination and grief while delving into her own experience with topics like maternity, breastfeeding, and the pandemic. Kamiya employs organic shapes, semi-figurative drawings, and crystals in her painted sculptures to allude to traditional Japanese spirituality and its affinity to nature.
Kahori Kamiy has exhibited work at Solo Exhibition at Amos Eno Gallery, Brooklyn; Dumbo Arts Festival, Brooklyn; and the 14th WRO Media Art Biennale, Warsaw, among others.
Events & Exhibitions
2023 Spring Open Studios
April 21–April 22, 2023
Kahori Kamiya, Long Eclipse, 2023, oil paint, metal leaf, foam, resin, feather, fabric and linen, 120 × 72 in. (304.8 × 182.88 cm).
Kahori Kamiya, Blooming Flow, 2022, clay, acrylic, metal leaf, cinder block and amethyst, 23 × 43 × 22 in. (58.42 × 109.22 × 55.88 cm).
Kahori Kamiya, I Have Been Waiting For You, 2023, clay, plaster, acrylic, foam, raisin, fabric, metal leaf and amethyst, 48 × 80 × 52 in. (121.92 × 203.2 × 132.08 cm).
Kahori Kamiya, I Have Been Waiting For You, 2023, clay, plaster, acrylic, foam, raisin, fabric, metal leaf and amethyst, 48 × 80 × 52 in. (121.92 × 203.2 × 132.08 cm).
Installation view of Kahori Kamiya's solo show "Long Eclipse" at Amos Eno Gallery, 2023.
Residents from United States
Past Resident2023: Alberta Foundation for the Arts
Mandy Espezel
Mandy Espezel is an interdisciplinary artist working with paintings and site-specific installations. Espezel’s works engage in an intersectional feminist-phenomenological discourse and investigate visceral representations of anxiety, desire, humour, and failure. She explores how intuitive processes manifest bodily knowledge, while questioning the division of the material and the conceptual and addressing the authority of a hierarchical-binary-system.
Mandy Espezel has exhibited work at Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Canada; Trükimuuseum Gallery, Estonia; and Space Gachang Gallery, South Korea, among others.
Events & Exhibitions
2023 Spring Open Studios
April 21–April 22, 2023
Mandy Espezel, Body Longing, 2021, oil on canvas, craft paper, works on paper, and wall painting, dimensions variable. Courtesy of Southern Alberta Art Gallery. Photo by Blaine Campbell.
Mandy Espezel, Submerged, 2021, oil on canvas, 88 × 681/2 in. (223.52 × 173.99 cm). Courtesy of Southern Alberta Art Gallery. Photo by Blaine Campbell.
Mandy Espezel, installation view of "Drip and Tickle: nothing ever is not true, nothing ever is always real," 2019, mixed media, dimensions variable. Courtesy of Space Gachang Gallery.
Mandy Espezel, slipping into & against, 2018, mixed media, dimensions variable. Courtesy of Studio PRÁM.
Mandy Espezel, Paper Fort, 2017, mixed media. Courtesy of Harcourt House Gallery.
