Shawn Artis

Award winning visual artist, Shawn Artis was born in New Haven, Connecticut, where he was adopted by two social activists, Clarence and Lucille Artis. Shawn currently resides in Houston, Texas where his practice focuses on using his visual storytelling abilities to highlight social and cultural issues that affect today’s societies. His body of work aims at encouraging dialogue while also creating solution-based thinking amongst diverse groups.

Upon relocating to Houston, Shawn continued his studies at the John Biggers School of Art as well as the MFAH Glassell School, and has exhibited consistently for the past 15 years both nationally and internationally. After a lifelong journey of using the pain of not knowing his biological origins to fuel his artistic passions, in 2019 he was finally able to find his maternal family and shortly after in 2021 he met his paternal side of the family.

Now being equipped with the blueprint of his beginnings, the art world is eager to see what’s on the horizons for this electrifying creative.

www.theshawnartisgallery.com

Tyson Davis

Tyson’s journey as an artist started in the back of an 8th grade classroom, with pencil, paper, and a Marvel Comic book. Mimicking the illustrations that he found striking and dynamic. Amazed by these creative characters and the development of their stories, he began to draw daily.

Tyson’s self-taught style is best described as warped realism. Using impactful images to portray his message, while free flowing backgrounds that add depth and perspective to his creations. His use of color and fine detail, fill canvases large and small, with passion and purpose. His ability to take words and create stunning visuals, has propelled him into a professional art career.

He uses his experiences and understandings to guide him through his design process. With a background in welding, construction, and warehouse work, allows him to operate machinery, fabricate components, and makes him knowledgeable about the most effective and ageless materials to incorporate into his art work.

Tyson is the father of 4 beautiful daughters, and a loving partner to his fiancé. His family is the driving force behind his decision to pursue a full-time art career. He feels that his success as a Small Business Owner will inspire his children to dream big, and always work hard for what they want. His daily life is filled with the beauty of building the character of these 4 beautiful girls.

Sophia Deleon-Wilson

Sophia Deleon-Wilson is a senior at Rice majoring in Studio Arts and Cognitive Science. Her mediums to work in are oil, digital painting, and multimedia sculpture. Her favorite subjects to work with are figures and faces and how they interact with light. Her other hobbies include cooking, web development, and reading.

Kay Duong

Kay Duong is a Social Policy Analysis major at Will Rice. She specializes in photorealism using oil and acrylic paints. Her artworks are inspired by traditional Western art. Kay's color palette involves various neutrals with an occasional vibrant piece. She enjoys Eastern art such as those by Takashi Murakami and Chiharu Shiota.

Joshua Mouton

Joshua Mouton is the owner and lead artist of J Smooth Ink. This native Houstonian is a graduate of Full Sail University with a Bachelor's Degree in Graphic Design. His keen eye and love for depth helps him develop websites, logos, and build brand identities for individuals and companies. His love of art was birthed out of a childhood affection with cartoons and anime, which continues to spark his exhibit-worthy works.

Mouton has studied multiple mediums, but sees himself as a life-long student to art and all of its limitlessness. As a lover of anime and manga, his focus has been creating fan art and developing his own comic books, when he is not being commissioned to do other work.

Mouton has worked with a large array of clients including the Houston Grand Opera, The Children’s Museum of Houston, and the Houston Arts Alliance- to name a few. As a father, he looks to pass on his artistic love to his children. He and his wife live and create in Houston, TX.

​

https://www.jsmoothink.com

Deloné Osby

DeLoné is a self taught artist. They use their work as a way to heal their own traumas, their ancestors & recently their audience. Through spiritual practices & ancestral work they incorporate the messages they receive via dreams and meditation into their work. Growing up multi-racial & queer, it was important to them to find their sense of self and where they fit in within her communities. Art has helped them accomplish this. Their work has become an embodiment of self and the divine in a way that also lets the viewer see divine in themselves.

Kristi Rangel

Kristi Rangel is a Houston based self-taught multi-disciplinary artist, who resides in the Greater East End. Kristi brings to her artistic practice the passion and dedication to community honed by her many years as an outstanding educational, public health and city government leader. Starting her artistic phase later in life means she brings some interesting insights to her work and a different perspective.

Kristi is the Houston Coalition Against Hate’s (HCAH) Emerging Artist of the Year. Her series, “Seven”, will exhibited in spaces throughout Houston. “Seven” focuses on the themes of race, gender, equity and environmental justice. Kristi is currently the lead facilitator and co-creator of the “Witness Series”. The “Witness Series” is interactive public art experience that explores the many profound experiences African Americans have to the Land of Southeast Texas. She is in the planning phase of several public art pieces that will be created. She is, also, completing several paid private commissions, while pursuing opportunities to exhibit her work and creating new works for her next series.

Madison Zhao

Madison Zhao grew up in Bethesda, Maryland and is an undergraduate student at Rice University. She works primarily with acrylic paint, watercolor and charcoal but is expanding into digital design. She is fascinated by color and space and developed a series of paintings titled Street Series to explore the concepts of color and abstraction. Recently, Zhao uses her artwork as a means for social change. During the pandemic, she created watercolor designs to address
the complexities of growing up in America as a Chinese American. Her select design $3,000 for
a life? was granted the first place award in Montgomery County’s AAPI Heritage month poster
contest. Additionally, she was nominated for Superintendent’s Fine Arts Award and has had pieces juried into Congressional Art competitions and exhibited in Rockville Visarts gallery.

Zhao is also interested in the intersection between art and medicine. She has partnered with the Youth Art for Healing non-profit to create comforting artworks to be displayed in hospitals and medical centers. Her past pieces have been displayed in Medstar Montgomery Medical Center, and Walter Reed Navy hospital. She continued to develop her interest by teaching watercolor lessons to Alzheimer’s patients at the Brookdale Olney senior home. Currently she is an artist and intern in the Medical, Race, Democracy lab where she works to excavate the intersection between western and eastern medicine using the medium of visual art, poetry, and oral history.

She is also the main visual artist for an upcoming graphic novel about the violent history of abortion in Mexico City.

​

Website