TalkAbout | Bending Light (VIRTUAL)

Join us for a virtual conversation with all four exhibiting artists, Kaima Marie Akarue, Ciara Elle Bryant, Cat Martinez, and Chandrika Metivier, facilitated by guest curator Taylor Davis. In this conversation, they will discuss some of the many themes addressed in Bending Light.

TalkAbout is a program that facilitates thought provoking conversations with artists and the people who inspire them. This event is free and open to the public. RSVP to attend the online discussion. 

About the Speakers

Kaima Marie Akarue is the daughter of a Nigerian immigrant and a white American, which allowed her to exist simultaneously within two vastly different cultures. Akarue uses collage to discover the social implications of identity, with specific attention to the narratives surrounding urbanism and capitalism as they incubate in individual, familial and social tropes. In 2023, she received the Carol Crow Fellowship, awarded by the Houston Center for Photography, and is also a recipient of the Houston Endowment’s 2024 Jones Artist Award. She is currently pursuing an MFA in painting at the University of Houston.

Ciara Elle Bryant is an interdisciplinary artist working with photography, new media, video, and installations. Bryant chooses to discuss Black culture and Blackness by focusing on how identity and heritage exist in the new millennium. Bryant approaches this task through her intensive research practice, which is integral to her process of furthering conversations surrounding Black culture in art as well as historical studies. Bryant is currently residing in Dallas, TX and holds a Masters of Fine Art from Southern Methodist University.

Catherine Martinez is a visual artist based in Houston, Texas. She is a mixed media sculptor that works with metals, fibers and mold making. Her work is often an abstract representation of significant moments in the African diaspora. She delves into subjects of race and ethnicity. When Martinez creates, she aims to give voice to an emotion that cannot be contained inside oneself. Martinez graduated magna cum-laude, from the University of Houston with a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Sculpture. She has a MFA in Sculpture from the University of Houston. She is also a Project Row Houses Round 55 Artist of 2023. Martinez is a contributing artist of the “We Here Black Women’s Arts Collective”; she created the “Road Trip Collective”.

Chandrika Metivier  is a non-binary, multidisciplinary artist of Haitian, Native, and Mexican descent whose creative expression spans performance-theatre, soft sculptures, and text-based paintings on public structures. Their installations and performances across the United States tackle daring and provocative themes, often drawing from personal narratives to illuminate pressing global issues. These semi-autobiographical pieces underscore the intersections of discrimination and radicalism. Seamlessly blending art with activism, Chandrika utilizes a myriad of disciplines as powerful instruments for social protest. Their collaborative engagements include projects with esteemed institutions and platforms such as DiverseWorks, The Orange Show, Rice University, Soho House, Puma, The Contemporary Austin, SaveArtSpace, and Art At A Time Like This.

About the Curator

Taylor Davis is an independent curator and landscape designer living in Austin, TX. After receiving her masters in Landscape Architecture from the University of Texas at Austin she went on to work for a local Austin design firm, TBG partners where she works on projects such as parks, multifamily amenity courtyards, hospitals and trails. Her curatorial practice is interested in the nuance of artistic practice as it relates to unique life experiences. Working with different galleries she has curated group art shows in San Francisco and Austin. She serves as a board member of the Trail Conservancy in Austin and serves as the board chair for their Arts and Culture Committee and has worked with local Austin arts and culture groups such as AIPP and Future Front Texas.