Marian Bailey is a self-taught contemporary artist whose work explores themes of memory, history, and identity through the use of mixed media, painting, and drawing. Bailey’s works are often characterized by her use of bold colors, gestural brushstrokes, and dynamic color blocking. At the heart of Bailey’s artistic practice is a fascination with the ways in which individuals and communities connect as a means to move through current time and into the future. Drawing on personal and collective histories, Bailey’s work investigates how memories and narratives are formed and transmitted across time and space. Bailey’s artwork often features images and symbols that reference her African American heritage and experiences. Through her use of visual language, Bailey seeks to disrupt traditional power structures and open up new dialogues around issues of race, gender, and culture. Ultimately, Bailey’s work is a celebration of the human experience and a testament to the power of art to inspire empathy, understanding, and social change. One of Bailey’s primary goals as an artist is to create art that is accessible and inclusive, welcoming viewers of all backgrounds and perspectives. She believes that art has the power to bring people together and to spark important conversations about the world around us.

German Ayala Vazquez is a photographer and visual artist originally hailing from Bayamón, Puerto Rico, raised in New York City and now based in Philadelphia. His artistic practice encompasses a diverse range of photographic styles, including fashion, conceptual, and photojournalistic approaches. Vazquez’s primary aim is to illuminate and uplift the narratives and experiences of BIPOC LGBTQIA+ individuals worldwide, with a particular emphasis on regions historically affected by colonization.
Notable among his recent clientele are esteemed entities such as Condé Nast, Apple, Barrons Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, Shutterstock, and many more.

His educational background includes a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in photography from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Over the course of his career, he’s garnered awards and grants from renowned institutions such as Profoto, Nikon, the Shutterstock Creator Fund, Creative PHL Illuminate the Arts, and Wacom. Recognized as a 2023 DEAI Alumni Awards Recipient, and finalist in the 2022 Lens culture Portrait Awards have earned features in numerous publications, including PhotoVogue.

His personal artistic endeavors have been widely showcased through various exhibitions, most notably the 2024 Black Art Biannual, British Journal of Photography’s 2021 Home Exhibition, and the Humble Arts Foundation.

I received my BFA in Illustration from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, PA in 2021, and was the recipient of the 2021 Fellowship Trust Award and the Conrad J. Linke Memorial Scholarship while at The Academy. I was an Artist in Residency with the Black Gotham Experience in New York City in October 2022. My most recent Solo Exhibition at Welancora Gallery in Brooklyn,NY which exhibited over 20 drawings and paintings done mostly in metalpoint, a drawing technique in which I use various metals to draw my works. Previous exhibitions include Silver, DFN Projects and New York Artists Equity, New York, New York 2021 and A Good Habit Formed: Examples of the PAFA Drawing Culture, Philadelphia, PA 2019 . I see myself as a scribe. The record-keeping between the subject and I is the act of artmaking. As a scribe transcribing the spoken word, I too have an obligation to depict each subject with a sense of urgency and respect given that my time with them is ephemeral. The purpose of my work is to encapsulate the ways in which we work within and against the societal, artistic, and material confines we inevitably find ourselves in. As a scribe, each piece is a documentation, and the medium a vehicle for communication. My current practice explores Black Material Culture, what brought Black bodies to their place today, who played a role in objectifying us, and how we objectify ourselves. After researching and educating myself on this Material Culture, my pieces serve as a visual marker of each subject. I hope that my work creates a dialogue around how far we have come and how much left we have to go in working through identities we never created, yet were created in. These pieces are a meditative act on my identity, with each line a conversation with the history of Blackness.

Odochi Akwani is a film photographer originally from Omaha, Nebraska, but now based in Philadelphia. Odochi is a member of Diversify Photo’s Up Next collective. She uses the medium of photography to document the rhythms of everyday life. Her work is steered by a passion for visual storytelling through observation. Odochi holds a Bachelor of Journalism from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.