Tay Butler is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Houston, Texas. He received his BFA in Photography and Digital Media from the University of Houston and recently completed his MFA in the University of Arkansas’ Photography program. After retiring from the US Army and abandoning a middle-class engineering career to search for purpose, Butler reignited a rich appreciation for Black history and a deep obsession with the Black archive. Using past and present images to create a historically-layered body of work, Tay reorients cultural material from the ever-growing Black experience. Butler works with photography, collage, video, and sound exhibitions and installations. His solo exhibitions and installations include RE.Migrant I & II at Project Row Houses, Houston and We Are Still Searching at the Louise J. Moran Fine Arts Courtyard, Houston. Group exhibitions of his work have been featured at ArtPace, San Antonio, the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, and the Texas Biennial at Fotofest. Performance exhibitions include The Triangle, for The Idea Fund and CAMH, and Jefferson Pinder’s Fire and Movement for DiverseWorks, Houston. Butler’s awards include the Individual Artist Fellowship from the Arkansas Arts Council, and First Prize in the 2019 Citywide African-American Artists Exhibition at Texas Southern University, Houston. He has collaborated with the Houston Rockets, Coca-Cola, and many others. Butler currently teaches Art & Design for San Jacinto College, Houston and has led both private and community workshops for The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative, Virginia and Crystal Bridges Museum, Arkansas.

Lovie Olivia American Artist, Lovie Olivia--born, living, and working in Houston Texas creates works that spans numerous mediums and methods informed by race, gender and sexuality and the historical and cultural nuances surrounding these intersections. She engages various archives--unearthing matter, employing painting, printmaking, sculpture, and installation to arrive at her makings. Her practice presents a Contemporary reinterpretation of classic Italian Renaissance Frescos matched with a rich and archival approach to collage. She strongly believes in what Valerie Cassell Oliver coined as “Intuitive Intellectualism” where the artist's practice evolves from a mostly self-taught strategy. Olivia’s work hangs in numerous private and public collections including Project Row Houses, ACRE Residency Chicago, the National Museum of African American History and Culture at the Smithsonian Institute and University of Texas Austin. She is a recipient of three Individual Artist Awards, which are funded by the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance. Including a current commission with the City of Houston and Bush Intercontinental Airport. She has exhibited nationally and internationally at Corridor Gallery, Brooklyn NY, 1969 Gallery Manhattan NY, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago IL, Vanderbilt University, Nashville TN, Tinney Contemporary Nashville, Frist Museum Nashville, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH), Blaffer Museum, Houston TX Houston Museum of African American Culture (HMAAC), Houston TX, Art Pace, San Antonio TX The Station Museum, Houston TX, Project Row Houses, Houston TX, TSU University Museum, Houston TX, Erin Cluley, Dallas TX, Arthello Beck Gallery in Dallas TX and many more.

Houston First Corporation is leading the effort to promote Houston as one of the great cities of the world. Their employees operate the city's finest convention, arts, and entertainment venues. A local government corporation formed in 2011, Houston First’s responsibilities include the development of the destination brand strategy, promoting the city worldwide, driving tourism and convention business, operating numerous facilities, producing events that serve the community, collaborating with commercial and industry partners and much more.

CAMHLAB at Freedmen’s Town is an onsite artist-in-residency program that aims to highlight, honor, and animate the histories and stories of Freedmen’s Town, a neighborhood established in 1865 by over 1,000 formerly enslaved people that is now recognized as Houston’s first Heritage District. In line with HFTC x CAMH’s goals, CAMHLAB at Freedmen’s Town aims to generate research, contextualize, and connect artists and the general public to the stories of Freedmen’s Town through month-long residencies.

For more information, visit CAMH.ORG/CAMHLAB.

The Houston Freedmen’s Town Conservancy is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that protects and preserves the history of Freedmen’s Town for the benefit of future generations. We support community engagement, re-education, and heritage tourism.