RESIDENCIES
JAMIE DIAZ
2022
The MOTHA Resident Artist Program is pleased to announce its second resident artist: Jamie Diaz.
Jamie Diaz is a Mexican-American trans woman and artist currently incarcerated in Texas. Born in the Midwest in the late 1950s, Jamie grew up in Houston and started drawing and painting at the age of 15.
Jamie primarily creates from her imagination and describes experiencing new ideas like an endless stream of imagery in her mind. Though the subject matter varies widely, Jamie’s work shares a recognizable, unique style. Motifs woven throughout represent themes of love, queerness, and human suffering. Each piece holds many of the complexities and emotions present in both the queer experience and the human condition: good and evil, pleasure and pain, pride and persecution.
Jamie dedicates her art to the LGBTQ+ community and has contributed to the community via organizations such as the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, Black & Pink, Philadelphia FIGHT, etc. Her comix and illustrations have been featured in publications including: Prison Health News, A Queer Prisoners Anthology I-V (A.B.O. Comix), How to Wait (Sage Clemmons, 2019), and Passage & Place (Deviant Type Press, 2014). Jamie’s first full length comic book is forthcoming from A.B.O. Comix. Jamie’s debut solo show, “Even Flowers Bleed,” opened in September and is on view through Oct 29 at Daniel Cooney Fine Art, NYC.
MOTHA is honored to name Jamie an artist in residence in recognition of her service to the community, accomplishments as a contemporary artist, and to join her support network on the outside.
TUESDAY SMILLIE
2013
MOTHA is pleased to announce its inaugural resident artist: Tuesday Smillie.
The MOTHA Resident Artist Program is the first of its kind in the world! This unique residency seeks to support the work of contemporary trans artists in the most inclusive and hands-off way possible. The program was developed out of a need for a convenient residency, one that takes into account the hectic life of the struggling, yet dedicated, trans artist and makes no demands or promises on their time. The MOTHA Resident Artist Program, like the museum itself, is an amorphous entity: it offers no physical structure to its resident artists. Therefore, the current resident artist is free to work wherever and whenever their unique practice dictates. In exchange for this flexibility, artists are asked to make no demands on MOTHA, lest they taint and disrupt their practice with the tedious day-to-day operations of the arts and hirstory institution.
The MOTHA Resident Artist Program recognizes that the resident artist themself lends as much if not more legitimacy to the institution than the institution lends to the artist. Therefore the artist is encouraged but not required to produce work or report on their practice during the term of the residency. It is enough that they are making work. MOTHA will take their word for it. The length of the residency is determined by the resident.
Selection for this residency program was made by its Executive Director, Chris E. Vargas. The MOTHA Resident Artist Program itself is a collaboration with artist Tuesday Smillie.
Tuesday Smillie is a visual artist, living and working in Brooklyn NY. Utilizing watercolor, collage and textiles Smillie engages questions such as the imprint of the past on the present, and the binary of inclusion / exclusion. Through these questions Smillie’s work leaves a visual record of transgender-feminist politics.
Born in Boston Massachusetts, Smillie moved to Portland Oregon in 2001 where she was schooled in radical queer politics and received her BFA from Oregon College of Art & Craft with a concentration in Book Arts in 2007. Smillie moved to Brooklyn NY later that year. Her work has shown across the United States and Canada, including at the A.I.R. Gallery in Brooklyn, NY and Judson Church New York, NY.