Graduate students AJ Aremu and Luka Carter have been selected as participants in the competitive 2021 Chautauqua School of Art Residency Program. The Chautauqua School of Art residency program is a centerpiece of the Chautauqua Visual Arts (CVA). Founded in 1909, the School is an incubator of inclusive and expansive programming in the visual arts composed of workshops and one-on-one time with mentors covering all media. The curriculum intentionally breaks apart the traditional methods that silo disciplines from each other and instead embraces a full range of studio and pragmatic studies including professional development for artists, the art of pedagogy, writing in the 21st century, archiving and the relevance of art history today. Their program is inclusive, which is reflected not only by the team who teach at Chautauqua Visual Arts but also conveyed by the knowledge they share. 
 
This year, the Chautauqua School of Art residency program had the most applications in their history and admission was very competitive. The program accepted a very diverse group of people from all over the world, including artists from Nigeria, Bangladesh, India, China, Barbados and Bermuda, ages 23-62 in a truly intergenerational program. The Lamar Dodd School of Art is extremely please to have two students among this distinguished group. 

AJ Aremu is a first-generation immigrant born in Sweden to a family of Nigerian origin. Aremu's work focuses on the creation of large-scale images with the intent of keeping the viewers’ attention longer, to inspire intimate discussion between the art and the individual. The artworks they’ve created over the course of their artistic career are politically charged paintings and prints that strive to encourage individuals to educate themselves on the strife of black individuals. Through the use of silhouettes, rather than representation being limited to the model used for the imagery, they are able to represent black individuals as a whole.

Luka Carter (b. 1990, Los Angeles) is an interdisciplinary artist who lived on a boat for three years in Rockaway Beach, NY, a trailer in Bolinas, CA and plenty of places in between. The friends and community that he finds in each of these places has allowed for a strong, beautiful network of friendship and artistic collaboration, similar to what futurists might call tentacularity - “about life lived along lines, not at points, not in spheres.” With a background in construction and manual labor, Luka has a knack for making space for art in overlooked or interstitial spaces–– including an outhouse, abandoned lot, and a van. His practice spans zines, furniture, tattoos, ceramics, clothing, and installations. He is currently pursuing his MFA at the Lamar Dodd School of Art.

Image: Flywheel by Luka Carter