SHAPE OF WHO WE ARE: EXPLORING IDENTITY

Suit Case

Leaving (Suitcase Diptych), Neville Barbour

Charcoal, Acrylic, Floral Paper, Torn Family Color Photo, 21"x13"x24"

 

Shape of Who We Are: Exploring Identity 
September 11 - December 9

The New Bedford Art Museum presents the Shape of Who We Are: Exploring Identity, a juried showcase curated by Marcelle Joseph, an independent curator and collector.

Identity can connect us to our origins or inspire transformation. In Shape of Who We Are, artists from across the globe explore how identity is formed, expressed, and reimagined through race, gender, class, culture, and personal history. These works invite us to reflect on what we choose to carry forward, what we leave behind, and the infinite ways we might become.

Juror Statement: 

"In this climate of geopolitical chaos, environmental crises, trade wars and populist post-woke political agendas that are stripping people of their rights, in particular, those folks marginalized by their gender choices, this open call exhibition could not have come at a better time. For this exhibition that explores identity, I selected works that tell a story about each artist and their unique origins, whether it be a Korean boy who was adopted at birth by an American family, a Black Irish woman grappling with her double diaspora or a person who was born in the wrong body. The viewer will be treated to a panoply of narratives that both celebrate the artists’ own gender, race and class as well as critique the societal norms that declare them ‘other’. Given that these histories are rooted in a lived bodily experience, I chose artworks with meaning embedded in their materiality – from textiles and ceramics to paintings and sculptures.  I hope that this exhibition raises the visibility of queer and trans people, highlights the non-hierarchical relationship between humans and nature, tells long-erased accounts of the Great Migration through Black ancestral memory, raises awareness of the immigrant experience in the United States, exposes the myriad expressions of non-toxic masculinity across the gender and racial spectrum, and calls attention to the ongoing struggle for women’s equality. We all need to be social justice and environmental warriors. I hope that this exhibition spurs the viewer on to realizing what an important role they can play in changing social constructions that have appeared fixed for decades and even centuries."

  

- Marcelle Joseph, Independent Curator and Collector



"Between Here and Elsewhere" Pieced and Quilted Fabric and Acrylic Paint on Canvas, 7' x 7' x 6"

Wendell Brown
Between Here and Elsewhere
Pieced and Quilted Fabric and Acrylic Paint on Canvas
6'x 5'x4' 

ARTIST STATEMENT
Artist Statement

Rooted in the rich traditions of African American quilt-making — and inspired by the spiritual depth of Negro Spirituals and the forms of traditional African masks and sculpture — my work reimagines quilting as a sculptural, socially conscious, and deeply personal art form. Through layered fabrics, hand stitching, acrylic-painted canvas, and crafted sculptures, each piece becomes a vessel of memory, resistance, and cultural storytelling.

ARTIST BIO
Artist Bio

Wendell George Brown is a fiber artist whose work explores themes of race, cultural memory, and historical consciousness through the lens of “the veil” and “double consciousness”—concepts articulated by W.E.B. Du Bois in his seminal text, The Souls of Black Folk. Drawing on African American visual traditions, Brown creates textile-based works that engage with the complexities of identity, resistance, and collective survival.

A former assistant to the late American artist Faith Ringgold, Wendell George Brown has exhibited nationally and internationally in prominent museums and cultural institutions. His work is currently featured in the U.S. Department of State’s Art in Embassies Program (Embassy of Gabon, 2024–2026), the Smithsonian Institution’s traveling exhibition We Are the Story (2025–2029), and the Faith Ringgold Ancestor Project II. Earlier exhibitions include Talking History in Material Culture: Igbo and Akan Signs in Early Virginia at the University of Mary Washington (2007); The Skin Quilt Project: Uplifting Our Culture, Celebrating Tradition at the Towne Art Gallery, Wheelock College, Boston, Massachusetts (October–November 2010); the American Folk Art Museum in New York (2009); and the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s And Still I Rise: Race, Culture, and Visual Conversation (2013).

A native of Newport News, Virginia, Brown earned his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and an MFA from Howard University. He is currently Professor of Art at Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina.

Wisniewski.jpeg

Emily Wisniewski
I Wish We Were Trees, (2023)
Oil on Primed Plexiglass
48" x 30" x .25"

ARTIST STATEMENT
Artist Statement

Exploring connections between othered bodies — queer figures as they relate to one another and landscapes — my work entangles similarities and contradictions between humans and the environment. Contour drawings and loose, expressive brushwork also work to blur the boundaries between separate entities — bodies and landscapes become indistinguishable. I transform plexiglass from dumpsters, emphasizing the contradiction between fetishized landscapes and environmental destruction. The plexiglass drawings hang, casting shifting shadows, further dismantling the distinction between figure and setting. The translucent grounds of the paintings lend a skin-like quality to the paint, while the reflected light through the brushwork creates a sense of tactility and embodiment. Ultimately, my work uses the parodic female figure and fetishized landscapes to invite a more nuanced consideration of the intersections between bodies, desire, and the natural world.

ARTIST BIO
Artist Bio

Born in 1996 in Phoenix, Arizona, Emily Wisniewski lived a nomadic life, moving from one state to another in the United States. Observing the changing landscape during her travels, the environment offered her solace from the conservative rural society.

She received her education from Northern Arizona University, Italy, and graduated with a Master of Fine Arts from The LeRoy E. Hoffberger Painting at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in 2023. During her time at MICA, Wisniewski received a Fellowship from the Hoffberger Family Foundation as well as grants to work on curatorial projects. Other awards include "See the Sea Change Art and Technology Award" and the "WAAVE Foundation Female Art and Technology Award" in 2025, and others. Her artwork has been featured in numerous group exhibitions and fairs, including shows at Le Blanc Space, Art Basel Miami, Museum of Modern Art U Cara, the Peale Museum, MassArt, Amos Eno Gallery, Museum of Contemporary Art Flagstaff, and Baltimore City Hall-- to name a few. She had the opportunity to present her work in solo and two-person exhibitions, such as at Gateway Gallery and Cotyledon Gallery. Wisniewski was selected for a residency at Art Farm in Nebraska and Art Cake NY. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Meyers
Yu

Kristin Meyers
Monocle, 2025
Mixed Media and Found Objects
22" x14" x 13"

Xinyan Yu
Tide of The Unseen, 2023
Oil on Linen
30" x 24" x 1.5"

ARTIST STATEMENT
Artist Statement

In my work, I engage in ritual practice to explore the human condition. Ritual is combustible — a combination of actions that transform energy and alter time. It distills life's truths into a choreographed dance, celebrating our collective connections. The process begins with collecting objects imbued with traces of human engagement. These objects, rich with energy, are combined and contained to ferment — melding and interacting over time.

Patinas form, connections emerge, and once ready, the work begins. Without traditional armatures, pieces are woven through vectors, forming families of work. Each carries ancestral traits — materials, methods, and energies — creating layered connections and reflecting the human condition through their evolving lineage.

ARTIST BIO
Artist Bio

Kristin Meyers is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores ritual and sacred systems through installation and mapping. She weaves ritual practice with non-traditional materials to investigate spiritual energy and the structures that contain it. Her recent works delve into the essence of spirituality and its dynamics across multiple systems.

Meyers has exhibited both nationally and internationally, with shows at Arte Americas, New Bedford Art Museum, Contemporary Art Center, and the Ogden Museum in New Orleans. She has held residencies at The Joan Mitchell Center, AIR Vallauris, and Lorenzo de’ Medici. Her work has been featured in publications including Sliver of Stone and Make 8elieve – Grimoire.

Raised in Chicago and New York City, Meyers studied at Parsons School of Design and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has created public installations in Rome, Italy, and Vallauris, France. She currently lives and works in New Orleans and Miami, and her work is held in private collections in the U.S. and abroad.

ARTIST BIO
Artist Bio

Xinyan Yu is an artist based in Jersey City, New Jersey, working primarily in oil painting. Her work is rooted in female life experience, reflecting on the cycles of life—its fragility, resilience, and transformative power. She explores the relationship between the body, memory, and change, drawing inspiration from nature, feminine energy, and bodily intuition. Through organic forms and fluid gestures, Yu creates inner landscapes shaped by shifting emotional states. She highlights the evolving dialogue between inner emotional worlds and the external environment, revealing the rhythms of life and the invisible forces that sustain it.

Her paintings are known for their transparent textures and bold use of color, which together evoke a luminous, mysterious atmosphere. By intertwining biomorphic shapes with dreamlike, ethereal environments, she transmutes impassioned energy into visual form, blurring the line between abstraction and emotion, body and spirit.

Yu’s work has been exhibited in New York, Virginia, and across the Northeast, including the Viridian Artists Annual International Juried Exhibition at Viridian Artists Gallery in New York, Nature's Palette at Mills Pond Gallery in St. James, NY, GRIT at BAU Gallery in Beacon, NY, and 31 Women at Suffolk Art League in Suffolk, VA. Her work can be viewed at www.xinyanyuart.com and on Instagram @xinyanyu_art.

ARTIST STATEMENT
Artist Statement

My work is rooted in the exploration of female identity, reflecting on the cycles of life — its fragility, resilience, and transformative power. I draw inspiration from nature, female vitality, memory, and bodily intuition to create inner landscapes, using organic forms and fluid gestures to mirror emotional states. Blurring the boundaries between reality and imagination, my paintings evoke the shaping forces of the self and the silent energies that sustain life beneath the surface.

Asaro
Thompson SM

Larry Asaro
Getting Their Drag On, 1979
Digital Print Framed
20" x 15" x 1" 

Zac Thompson
Daniella Darling
Dye Sublimation Print on Aluminum from Disposable Camera
12” x 8” x 1"

ARTIST STATEMENT
Artist Statement

Artistic vision, developed through instruction and practice, focuses on the basic elements of line, form, pattern, color, light, and shadow to plan and articulate solid and spatial relationships.

During this development, pathways between mind, hand, and eye were created. In this case, the mind is not just intellect — it is the nexus of our senses as they vie for a voice in output.

The mind inspires, coordinates, and choreographs the whole body to produce art. Artists select tools to document these inspirations. The camera, like brush and paint, paper and pen, or voice and body, is a tool.

These tools now provide channels where basic elements and vision are expressed in photographic images — an expression that often imposes a skewed perspective on subjects, creating dynamic tensions between corner (or edge) and center, between abstract and reality, and between familiar and foreign.

ARTIST BIO
Artist Bio

My artistic vision emerged from a childhood love of drawing and developed through an education and career in design and architecture, where elements of line, form, pattern and spatial relationships articulated with color, light and shadow were emphasized. During that education, fascination for printed images led me to explore film photography as an art form.

Now, those elements and an affinity for worn, aging, often abandoned objects that lend themselves to subtle obscuration, drive my photographic image creation. In that process, I seek to skew traditional “story” perception, creating tension that blurs the edge between familiar and foreign allowing the simultaneous appearance of abstraction and reality.

After several years of Design practice in California, Florida and Massachusetts, I am now retired, living in Marshfield and participating in several local arts organizations and shows.

ARTIST BIO
Artist Bio

Zac Thompson AKA Zacrilegious is a trans-nonbinary photographer, performer, and producer based in Brooklyn, NY. They grew up in Colorado and Florida in an Evangelical Christian missionary community. Photography was their lifeline, allowing them to escape Florida and explore a queer, creative life in Los Angeles, and then to move to Brooklyn in 2017, where they’ve remained since. Their photos, zines, drag show productions, and professional work, which includes producing fine art prints for hundreds of artists, galleries, and museums, prioritize queer joy and art to challenge normative structures of gender, family, and love.

They received their BFA from the University of Florida and their MFA from the School of Visual Arts. They are contributors to Hyperallergic and Paper Mag and have exhibited in group exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum, the International Museum of Art & Science in McAllen, TX, and Craig Krull Gallery in Los Angeles, CA.

ARTIST STATEMENT
Artist Statement

My work immortalizes the trans and queer faces I know in Brooklyn using the candid and spontaneous nature of disposable film cameras. This is a community I deeply care about and have been part of for over eight years. As a queer and trans-non-binary artist, if I don't document my community, then who will?

The Christian evangelical family I was born into did not make room for queer, non-binary artists, let alone gender- bending drag performers. Being both of these, growing up felt suffocating. Art saved me, and now I use my creative work to playfully push the restrictive norms surrounding home, family, and gender that I was raised with by capturing candid moments of my own queer family.

Jones
Jones

Nneka Jones
Beyond The Horizon , 2023
Mixed Media- Embroidery and Acrylic
20" x 16" x 1"

Keina Elswick
The Evolution of My Father
Mixed Media on Canvas

24”x 20” x 3"

ARTIST STATEMENT
Artist Statement

As a Trinidadian multidisciplinary artist living and working in the United States, the theme of identity has followed me from my first day in America and continues to echo through my artistic practice as a tool for discovery and expansion. We all have a deep desire to feel a sense of belonging, and for me, leaving Trinidad to pursue a career in the arts was not an easy decision, yet has been the most transformative one yet.

A new identity began to emerge after my first attempt to hand embroider a portrait as a painter. I wanted to bring new perspectives to the genre often dismissed in fine art and labeled as 'grandma's hobby'. This led to a body of work that uses mixed media art to analyze Black identity, womanhood, and reveal intersections in culture while simultaneously presenting new perspectives in fiber arts and dismantling stereotypes.

My process is extremely physical, using both hands to sew through thick canvases and fabric, gathering thousands of storytelling stitches.

ARTIST BIO
Artist Bio

Nneka Jones is a Trinidadian-born multidisciplinary artist currently living and working in Tampa, FL. Her astounding love for color is influenced by her Caribbean background and her ability to push the traditional boundaries of textiles and fiber are vividly evident in her contemporary hand embroidery work.

Her practice explores innovative embroidery techniques to produce striking visual dialogues that expose the outdated perception of the limitations of textile art. Jones advocates for elevating textile art to exist in fine art spaces beyond being labeled as domestic hobbies. Using portraiture and symbolism, she captures emotions and creates narratives that advocate for the protection and celebration of women and young girls.

Since graduating from the University of Tampa in May 2020, Jones’ work has caught the eyes of Art directors in top publications like TIME magazine where she was commissioned to produce the hand embroidered flag that appears on the cover of the August 31st/ September 7th 2020. These meticulously hand stitched portraits reshape the mundane of traditional embroidery works to create bold concepts that take craft and design to the next level. With work featured in Marvel Studios Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, United Nations Population Fund, The American Craft Council, Embroidery Mag and permanent collections in Florida Craft Art Gallery, Ferman Art Center and Tampa Museum of Art, Jones continues to broaden her professional practice and break barriers at an early stage in her career.

ARTIST BIO
Artist Bio

Keina Davis Elswick is a San Francisco based painter and mixed media artist, with several years also spent living and creating in NYC, Boston and DC. She earned her (MFA) at Tufts University School of the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston) and her (BFA) at the University of Florida, with additional studies in the UK (London). Her work is exhibited and collected throughout the U.S. and Internationally. 

Davis Elswick is a two-time recipient of Individual Artist Grants from The San Francisco Arts Commission, the George Sugarman Foundation and the Puffin Foundation. In 2005-2007 she was nominated for the Eureka Fellowship, a prestigious award given by the Fleishhacker Foundation. Davis-Elswick has been featured in publications throughout the US and Canada, including, “Imagining Ourselves: Global Voices from a New Generation of Women”, an anthology and award-winning exhibit organized and published by the International Museum of Women. Davis Elswick was featured alongside contributors such as Zadie Smith, Ani DiFranco and Lisa Ling.

Some of Davis Elswick’s projects include ((ArtMusicVegan)); 2014; (a space for visual content not always included in mainstream conversations about contemporary art), and The Black Irish Archive; 2014. Both projects will relaunch in 2026. Davis-Elswick established Sivadart Studio in San Francisco (1998) and is the owner of Arclectica.

ARTIST STATEMENT
Artist Statement

I am interested in the stories that make us who we are; the regeneration and threading together of memories and shared history, of creativity and imagined future. In all of my work I hope to inspire us to make connections between the contemporary and the historical, between our ancestors and ourselves, between one culture and another, between the community and the individual.

My ancestry is rooted in Africa, Asia, Ireland, England, Scotland, Eastern Europe, Spain, Portugal, and a few other places in between. I am interested in these stories (and for the last several years, specifically stories within the larger Black-Irish Diaspora). A major part of my work explores "hybridity" and includes an ongoing series of mixed media pieces.

My work is historical, autobiographical & fictional. It is informed by memories, collected conversations, photographs, historical documents, family histories, proverbs, limericks & other cultural symbols, cartoons, music, song lyrics, old letters & other ephemera.

Harper
Curiel

Dana Lynn Harper
Velvet Communion
Velvet, Plaster, Wire, Wood, Broken China, Fabric
57" x 32" x 3"

Monica Curiel
Love Letter 01
Plaster, Synthetic Indigo Dye, Wood Stain, House Paints
62" x 40" x 1.5"

ARTIST STATEMENT
Artist Statement

Borrowing forms from Indonesian architecture, iron gates, candelabras, and religious altars, these ritualistic votives for offerings and ceremony fuse familial history with spiritual regality. Relics constructed using paper clay with centered landscapes and family photographs are an ode to undiscovered family stories and matriarchal wisdom; a longing to understand and connect with the land, bloodline, and stories of my family.

Portraits hidden behind patterns of rice, sheer fabrics, and blankets of glass reflect disillusion. Iron gate formations mirror the exclusionary practices experienced while growing up in America, echoing the complexities of racial identity. The meticulous placement of pearls, shells, and rice embed the work with devotional labor and cultural significance.

ARTIST BIO
Artist Bio

Columbus, Ohio-based artist Dana Lynn Harper holds a BFA in Art & Technology from The Ohio State University (2009), and received her MFA from Penn State University (2013), where she was awarded the Bunton-Waller Fellowship. She has been the recipient of an ArtPrize Artist Seed Grant, the ArtFile Magazine Emerging Artist Grant, a Ringholz Foundation Award, an Ohio Arts Council Professional Award, and the Manifest Grand Jury Prize. She has presented solo exhibitions across the US, most notably at Sculpture Center (Cleveland, OH), the University of Kentucky, Front/Space Gallery (Kansas City, MO), Manifest Gallery (Cincinnati, OH), and ROY G BIV Gallery (Columbus, OH). She has also made public installations in collaboration with the Columbus Museum of Art (OH), Otherworld (Columbus, OH), and Wonderspaces (Scottsdale, AZ). Harper was an Artist-in-Residence at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, Teton Artlab (Victor, ID), Bunker Projects (Pittsburgh, PA), Sculpture Space (Utica, NY), and ArtSpace Raleigh (NC). In 2015, she was awarded a scholarship from the NEA to attend Women’s Studio Workshop, and in 2022 she received a fellowship from Vermont Studio Center. Most recently, Harper had a solo exhibition at Auburn University and received a 2025 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award.

ARTIST BIO
Artist Bio

Monica Curiel is a multidisciplinary artist and designer who transforms construction materials—such as spackling paste and plaster—into relief paintings, art objects, sculpture, furniture, and lighting. Born in Dallas to Mexican parents from Jalisco, she was introduced to these materials while working alongside her father on construction sites. These materials, often associated with labor and utility, carry deep cultural significance—frequently handled by immigrant workers like her parents, yet rarely celebrated. Curiel brings her work into spaces connected to her community’s service and labor, honoring those histories through objects of beauty and reverence. Her practice explores themes of identity, visibility, and cultural inheritance, reflecting on the familial and cultural forces that shape her story and community.

Nicole McLaughlin— Short Bio

Nicole McLaughlin is a ceramic and fiber artist. As a daughter of an American father and Mexican mother, her identity has long been shaped by a collision of two cultures. Nicole was born and raised in Massachusetts but spent much of her early childhood in Mexico. As a first generation Mexican-American she is heavily influenced by her multicultural upbringing and her childhood memories of visiting her mother’s hometown in Mexico. Nicole received her Bachelors of Fine Arts from the Kansas City Art Institute in Kansas City, Mo and is currently represented by Anderson Yezerski Gallery in Boston, MA. Her studio practice engages in the preservation of craft traditions through intentional reinvention. Nicole draws inspiration from Mexican ceramics, textiles, and tradition to explore the intersection of motherhood, femininity and cultural inheritance. The reflection on her evolving identity after becoming a mother has brought with it, the greatest responsibility—to foster a connection that transcends time.

ARTIST STATEMENT
Artist Statement

My work is a tribute to labor, memory, and cultural inheritance. As a first-generation Mexican American raised in a family of tradespeople, I developed a connection to materials like plaster, spackling paste, and wood — materials I first encountered working alongside my father on construction sites. These raw, utilitarian materials are often handled by immigrant workers but rarely seen as vessels for beauty or storytelling. I reclaim them through sculpture, relief wall works, furniture, and lighting to honor the spaces where my community has long served.

Tactile and textural, my work resists the bright, decorative tropes often linked to Mexican art, instead using form and material to explore identity, visibility, and place. With a background in fashion and interior architecture — and shaped by surviving cancer — my practice is experimental and grounded in transformation.

CLICK TO LEARN ABOUT EACH ARTIST

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