Earlier this summer, the Houston-based organization Asia Society Texas (ASTX) announced its third cohort of Artists on Site.
The program, which was developed and launched in 2020, provides studio and project space, funding, and other support for Houston-area BIPOC artists. Selected artists receive a dedicated space for six weeks, a stipend of $1,750, a $500 materials budget, professional documentation of their work, and opportunities to connect with patrons, curators, and other arts professionals.
Past resident artists include Bennie Flores Ansell, Guadalupe Hernandez, Preetika Rajgariah, and Stevie Spurgin (2021); and Ahra Cho, Laura Drey, Brandon Tho Harris, and Royal Sumikat (2020). The 2022 artists are Luisa Duarte, Ruhee Maknojia, Matt Manalo, and Lanecia Rouse Tinsley. The artists began their residencies on July 20, and will continue to work in the space through August 28, 2022.
Learn more about each of the artists below, via descriptions provided by ASTX.
Luisa Duarte
Luisa Duarte
Houston-based artist Luisa Duarte is a Venezuelan American contemporary artist. She received her bachelor’s in architecture from the Universidad del Zulia, in Maracaibo, Venezuela, in 1987. Duarte’s work has been exhibited in various institutions around the world, including the Holocaust Museum in Houston, Texas; The Museum of Geometric and Madi Art in Dallas, Texas; The Museo de Arte Contemporáneo del Zulia, Maczul in Maracaibo, Venezuela; The Museo of Miranda in Los Teques, Venezuela; the Galveston Arts Center in Galveston, Texas; and the 2017 Texas Biennial in Austin, Texas. Most recently, Duarte’s work was selected for inclusion in a major exhibition at the Art Museum of South Texas, Texas Artists – Women in Abstraction (2022); and a solo exhibition of her work, Inseparable Ties, was curated by Kinzelman Art Consulting and exhibited in the TC Energy Building, Houston Texas (2021). In 2019, Duarte was a recipient of the Houston Art Alliance’s City Initiative Grant and she received first place in the 10th Annual Visual Arts Alliance juried invitational in 2016.
Ruhee Maknojia
Ruhee Maknojia
Ruhee Maknojia is an artist currently based in Houston, Texas. She holds an MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University (2019). Her conceptual research and art practice developed around the rich heritage of textile and patterning and how they can act as a base to raise questions about contemporary ethics, values, and power structures in an ever-growing and interconnected world. Drawing from her environment, growing up in the United States in an Indian-Pakistani home, Maknojia colorfully unfolds traditional wisdom from a place of intuition and intention. Pulling from many different South-Asian and American histories and philosophies to highlight the intersecting complexities of contemporary life through patterns and repetition. Her art engages a broad audience across various topics by using marks and symbols from her environment and leaving imagery open-ended to encourage the viewer to complete the story. Maknojia’s engagements translate into site-specific installation, video, painting, drawing, and printmaking.
Select exhibitions include One Flower | One Life, Box 13 ArtSpace, Houston, TX (2022); Time Won’t Tell, Project Gallery V, New York City (2021); The Happiness Curriculum, Eastern Connecticut State University Gallery, Connecticut (2019); Harlem Perspectives II, Faction Art Projects Gallery, New York City (2019); Feel That Other Day Running Underneath This One, Time Square Space, New York City (2018); and 42/18, LeRoy Neiman Gallery, New York City (2018).
Matt Manalo
Matt Manalo
Matt Manalo is a multidisciplinary artist who was born in Manila, Philippines and resides in Houston. He received his BFA in Painting at the University of Houston.
His environmentally conscious work incorporates raw materials and found objects and tackles ideas surrounding his own immigrant identity, displacement, and how “home” is defined. Manalo is influenced by the physical and social structures that exist in both the Philippines and the United States as well as the erasure of histories and presence of colorism that have resulted from colonization. His work was recently seen in the exhibition, Carriers: The Body as a Site of Danger and Desire, Blaffer Art Museum in Houston, Texas curated by Tyler Blackwell and Steven Matijcio and he is included in the 2021 Texas Biennial: A New Landscape/ A Possible Horizon curated by Evan Garza and Ryan Dennis.
Manalo is the founder of Filipinx Artists of Houston, a collective of visual, performing, literary, culinary, and multidisciplinary artists. He also runs an alternative art space Alief Art House, a hub for creativity that highlights the cultural richness of the multiple communities within a unique Houston neighborhood.
Lanecia Rouse Tinsley
Lanecia Rouse Tinsley
Lanecia Rouse Tinsley is a multidisciplinary artist who splits time between Houston, TX and Richmond, VA. Her portfolio includes a range of abstract painting, photography, teaching, writing, speaking, and curatorial projects for various non-profit organizations. Lanecia is the Artist-in-Residence at Holy Family HTX (2017-present). She is a co-founding Creative Director for the ImagiNoir Equity Group, an international alliance and community development and equity group of black activists, artists, writers, scholars, philanthropists, and educators. In addition, she is the Director of Justice and the Arts with projectCURATE. She was recently the 2020-2021 Artist-in-Residence for the Center for Engaged Research and Collaborative Learning (CERCL) at Rice University.
Lanecia has exhibited at Urban Zin Gallery, New York City, NY (2021 + 2022), The Brooklyn Collective, Charlotte, NC (2021 + 2022), Monterroso Gallery, Houston, TX (2022), Duke University Chapel (2022); Collect it for the Culture, Houston, TX; Houston First Corporation, Houston, TX (2021); Inman Gallery, Houston, TX (2020); Project Row Houses, Houston, TX (2020); Community Artists’ Collective, Houston, TX (2020); Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, Grand Rapids, MI; Forth and Nomad Gallery, Houston, TX (2019); American Church in Paris, Paris, France where she did a 1-month residency (2018); and Fourth Chapter Gallery, Kansas City, MO (2017 + 2021).
Lanecia is a graduate of Duke University Divinity School and Wofford College. Her work can also be seen at the Hardy + Nance Streets in Houston, TX and High Dawn Studios in Richmond, VA.
