Open Air: Artist Talk with Jackie Milad

This month's Open Air features Jackie Milad, a Baltimore City-based artist, whose mixed-media abstract paintings and collages address the history and complexities of dispersed cultural heritage and multi-ethnic identity.

She has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions nationally and internationally. Select exhibitions include Harvey B. Gantt Center (Charlotte, NC), Loyola University Maryland (Baltimore, MD), The Walters Art Museum (Baltimore, MD), Baltimore Museum of Art (Baltimore, MD), Academy Art Museum (Easton, MD), Arthur Ross Gallery University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA), Luis De Jesus Gallery (Los Angeles, A), Museo de Arte de Mazatlan (Mazatlan, MX).

Milad is a multi-year recipient of the Individual Artist Grant from Maryland State Arts Council. In 2019 she was named a Janet & Walter Sondheim Prize Finalist and a Robert W. Deutsch Foundation Ruby Grantee. Recently, she received the Municipal Art Society of Baltimore City Travel Prize to conduct in-depth research on the Egyptian antiquities held at the British Museum and Petrie Museums in London.

Open Air is a monthly series of virtual studio visits and intimate conversations with Black contemporary artists across the United States. Join us monthly as we celebrate a featured artist in one of our latest exhibitions.

Jackie Milad's work is included in several public collections, including, Johns Hopkins University Sheridan Library, Academy Art Museum, GLB Memorial Fund, Robert W. Deutsch Foundation, Pizzuti Collection and Meta (Facebook) Open Art Program. The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) recently selected Jackie Milad to create new work in dialogue with Fred Wilson's Artemis/Bast (1992). The solo exhibition with the BMA will be Milad's first solo at the Museum.

Milad received her BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, and her MFA from Towson University. She is currently represented by SOCO Gallery in Charlotte, North Carolina. She serves as faculty member in both the Curatorial Practice and MFA in Studio Arts at Maryland Institute College of Art.

Dexter Wimberly is an American entrepreneur and curator based in Hayama, Japan. He's the co-founder and CEO of the online education platform CreativeStudy.

Wimberly has organized exhibitions in galleries and museums around the world including the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City, The Green Family Art Foundation in Dallas, The Harvey B. Gantt Center in Charlotte, The Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) in San Francisco, KOKI Arts in Tokyo, and The Third Line in Dubai.

His exhibitions have been reviewed and featured in publications including The New York Times and Artforum, and have received support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and The Kinkade Family Foundation.

Wimberly is a Senior Critic at New York Academy of Art, and the founder and director of the Hayama Artist Residency in Japan. Prior to his curatorial career, Wimberly was the managing partner of the New York-based advertising and marketing agency August Bishop, representing a diverse array of clients including Adidas, The Coca-Cola Company, and HBO.