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Festival Jurors

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Introduction

The Tephra ICA Arts Festival is a highly selective fine art and fine craft outdoor exhibition. Each year, three top visual arts leaders, artists, and practitioners are identified as jurors to allow a thoughtful and critically engaged review process. Each application will be digitally reviewed by jurors and they will select the most accomplished artists within ten categories from around the nation to present their works at the Festival. The jurors will attend the Festival and will award the top ten artists to be announced at the Festival Cocktail Hour. Learn more about the 2023 jurors below.

Portrait of festival juror

Charles Phillipe Jean-Pierre

Charles Philippe Jean-Pierre is a Haitian American artist groomed on Chicago’s south side. Stark contradictions of beauty and power are ever-present as a theoretical and methodological struggle within his body of work. His multimedia paintings speak to the nexus of political, social, and economic structures and is representative of the synergy, or lack thereof, between societal perceptions and reality.

He is currently an adjunct professor at American University in the Fine Arts department. His work can be found in the permanent collection of the U.S. Embassy in Cotonou, Benin West Africa, and has been highlighted by numerous media outlets, including The Washington Post, Ebony Magazine, Black Enterprise, NHK Japan, The Village Voice, BET, NBC, Netflix, and FOX. Jean-Pierre was a President Obama White House invitee for the role of art education in promoting national youth justice. He holds an MA from Howard University and has created public art murals in South Africa, Panama, New York, Chicago, Washington, Istanbul, Montreal, Port-au-Prince, London, and Paris.

Portrait of festival juror

Katie O'Keefe

Katie O'Keefe was raised in Hudson Valley, New York and is currently based in Baltimore, Maryland where she is a resident artist of the City Arts live/work space in Station North, Baltimore.

From the age of 14, O'Keefe has been dealing with Chronic Lyme and her experience with this illness has greatly impacted her creative work. Initially trained in painting and drawing, she shifted her practice to adapt when Lyme temporarily limited her dexterity. She then discovered the joys and sensuality of working with thread.

She received her BFA in Fiber Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art and studied textiles abroad in Turkey. While in New York, she interned at Dieu Donné Papermill, where she learned the intricate processes of handmade paper. O'Keefe has notably exhibited her work at School 33 Art Center, Towson University, Stevenson University, The Baltimore Jewelry Center, and most recently presented her first solo show at Gallery CA.

Portrait of festival juror

Bohyun Yoon

Bohyun Yoon is associate professor of glass in Craft/Material Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. Yoon’s art exposes socially constructed notions of race, class, and gender by combining images of the human body with materials that possess invisible properties.

He has exhibited his works in Corning Museum of Glass, FILE Sao Paulo, Singapore Open Media Art Festival, Chimei Museum in Taiwan, Museum of Arts and Design NY, Renwick Gallery in Smithsonian American Art Museum, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Syracuse University and Hunter College. His work is included in the collections at Smithsonian American Art Museum, Song Eun Art Space, Tama Art University, and West Collection. Yoon earned his MFA in glass from the Rhode Island School of Design, and both his MFA and BFA in glass from Tama Art University in Tokyo.

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