Rabéa Ballin
Born in Germany and raised in Louisiana, Houston-based artist Rabéa Ballin earned her BFA in Design at McNeese State University and her MFA in Drawing and Painting at the University of Houston. Her multidisciplinary works explore the uniqueness of self-identity, hair politics, and social commentary. She documents these themes primarily through drawing, digital photography, and various printmaking practices. In addition to working as an independent artist, she has been a member of the all-female ROUX printmaking collective since 2011. Ballin has served as an artist board member at both Art League Houston and DiverseWorks, and has completed residencies at DiverseWorks, Tougaloo College and Project Row Houses. Professor, curator, and frequent panelist, she is currently living and working in Houston’s historical Third Ward community.
Sarah Darro
Sarah Darro (she/her) is a curator, writer, and visual anthropologist working at the nexus of contemporary craft, art, and design. She has established an intersectional curatorial vision that is invested in reinvigorating museum spaces as forums for discourse, innovation, action, and engagement through experience. She lives and works in Houston, where she is the Curator and Exhibitions Director of Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. Darro was the 2022 Jentel Foundation Art Critic at the Archie Bray Foundation and the 2019 American Craft Council Emerging Voices Scholar. From 2021–22, she was the Gallery Manager of the Center for Craft in Asheville, North Carolina; in 2020, she completed a Curatorial Research Fellowship in Modern and Contemporary Glass at the Corning Museum of Glass (New York); and in 2018 she completed a three-year Windgate Curatorial Fellowship at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. She holds a Master’s degree in Visual, Material, and Museum Anthropology from the University of Oxford and dual Bachelor’s degrees in Art History and Anthropology from Barnard College of Columbia University. Her research interests include artist communities and collectives, movement and performance practice in craft, architecturally-influenced design, radical accessibility, systems esthetics, and the life histories and agency of objects.
Jennifer Ford
Jennifer Ford is the representation of sneaker culture in Houston as the only Black female sneaker boutique owner in the Nike family and the owner of Premium Goods, the first sneaker boutique in Texas established in 2004. With Premium Goods, Ford has built a store and private label brand that proudly represents Houston’s culture. In 2010, she expanded Premium Kids, a children’s store focused to help cultivate the next generation of sneaker-heads in Houston. Ford also dedicates her time to her family and aims to empower other women and minorities in her community. She is committed to being an ambassador to help other women chase their goals and achieve their dreams.
Ann Johnson
Born in London and raised in Cheyenne, Ann Johnson is a graduate of Prairie View A&M University in Texas, where she has taught for over 20 years. Johnson has earned Art Teacher of the Year in 2010, 2017, and 2022, and received the distinguished Presidents Faculty of the Year Award in 2011. She holds an MA in Humanities from the University of Houston-Clear Lake and an MFA from The Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Johnson is primarily an interdisciplinary artist with an emphasis on experimental printmaking and found objects. Her passion for exploring issues, particularly in the Black community, has led her to create engaging work. Her series, It Is The Not Knowing That Burns My Soul, was included in the exhibition catalogue for IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas (2009) at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (Washington, DC). She is a prize winner in Lawndale Art Center’s The Big Show and a mixed media winner in the Carroll Harris Simms National Black Art Competition. She was a featured artist in the 2013 and 2021 Texas Biennial. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, and she was listed as an artist to watch in the International Review of African American Art. Johnson was listed as one of the 10 Most Transformative Artists of 2022 by Black Art in America. She has completed residencies at Tougaloo Art Colony in (Jackson), Project Row Houses (Houston), Kala Art Institute (Berkeley), and the Plains Art Museum (Fargo). She has exhibited at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Claire Oliver Gallery (Harley), High Point Center For Printmaking (Minneapolis), and the California African American Art Museum (CAAM) (San Francisco). Johnson is represented by Spillman Blackwell Fine Art (New Orleans) and Hooks Epstein Galleries (Houston).
Karen Navarro
Karen Navarro is an Argentinian-born multidisciplinary artist currently living and working in Houston. Navarro works on a diverse array of mediums that include photography, collage, the use of text and sculpture. Her image-based work and multimedia practice investigate the intersections of identity, representation, race, and belonging in reference to her migrant experience, her Indigenous identity and the history of colonization and its influence. Her constructed portraits are known for pushing the boundaries of traditional photography and the use of color. Navarro has won numerous awards and grants for her mixed-media photography, including the Artadia Fellowship and the Top Ten Lensculture Critics’ Choice Award, and has been shortlisted for several more, including the Photo London Emerging Photographer of the Year Award and The Royal Photographic Society, IPE 163. Her work has been exhibited in the U.S. and abroad. Navarro has exhibited at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Galerija ULUPUH (Zagreb), FAR Center for Contemporary Arts (Bloomington), Holocaust Museum Houston, Artpace San Antonio, and Melkweg Expo (Amsterdam). Navarro’s work has been featured in numerous publications, including ARTnews, The Guardian, Observer, Rolling Stone Italia, and Photo Vogue Festival Italia.
