MASS Gallery, an Austin-based artist-run nonprofit gallery and project space, has announced its 2023 HOTBOX Artists-in-Residence.
Established in 2012, the residency program provides two artists or artist-teams with an honorarium of $500 and studio space for eight weeks. To accomplish this, MASS transforms its 1,500-square-foot gallery into a furnished studio. The selected artists will also participate in MASS’ series Close Encounters, which provides a platform for artists to engage with the public in creative and unexpected ways. Past Close Encounters programs have included a performance via Instagram Takeover by Robert Jackson Harrington, and a cookout and artist Q+A with Brooke Burnside, Diego Mireles Duran, and Carlos Rosalez-Silva.
A work by Jamie Lerman. Image courtesy of MASS Gallery.
The 2023 HOTBOX Artists-in-Residence are Jamie Lerman (June 17 – July 14) and Alexis Hunter (July 15 – August 12). During her residency, Ms. Lerman will create new experimental glazes, develop a body of ceramic works, host a workshop, and present a hybrid day market/dinner party as part of the Close Encounters program. Later in the summer, Ms. Hunter will use the residency to expand on her current series HAVEN’T I GIVEN ENOUGH??!!, which challenges the policing of women’s bodies. For Close Encounters, Ms. Hunter will host an artist meet-up karaoke party.
A work by Alexis Hunter. Image courtesy of MASS Gallery.
Learn more about the selected artists below, via descriptions provided by MASS Gallery.
Jamie Lerman
Jamie Lerman is a multidisciplinary artist interested in the cross pollination between ceramics, printmaking, and metalsmithing. Originally from Dallas, Ms. Lerman returned to Texas in 2020 after receiving her BFA in Fine Arts from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. While assisting in ceramic and print shops, she discovered the overlap in materials the processes shared and set out to explore the mediums to their fullest. Ms. Lerman’s current investigations explore glaze chemistry, sculptural arrangements, and dinner parties.
Alexis Hunter
Alexis Hunter is an identity-based, multidisciplinary artist currently living and working in Austin, TX. She earned her BFA from Texas State University in Studio Art, with a concentration in painting, graduating summa cum laude (2022). Recent solo and group exhibitions include INVASIVE SPECIES, ICOSA Collective Gallery, Austin, TX; Own it, examine it, and confront it head on, DORF, Austin, TX; Collective Thoughts, Antenna Gallery, New Orleans, LA; and SBMRPVII, the Carver Museum, Austin, TX. In 2022, Ms. Hunter was selected to participate in Big Medium’s LINE Residency and vol. 2 of the George Washington Carver Museum’s Small Black Museum Residency Project. Ms. Hunter is a member of the artist-run collective, ICOSA, and a painting instructor at The Contemporary Austin’s Art School at Laguna Gloria. She is currently nominated for The Austin Chronicle’s Best Visual Artist of 2023. Her work explores self-image through racial identity, mental health, the female body, and the male gaze.
