(53) Artist Talks

Merik Goma (53) is a New Haven-based photographer and alumni of the NXTHVN Studio Fellowship Program, an arts incubator. Goma builds intricate sets within his studio that he uses both as subjects of tableaux and as backdrops for narrative portrait photography. His technique is painterly in execution, with close attention paid to color and lighting. His work has been shown by Tilton Gallery and is in the collection of Yale University and the Detroit Institute of Art. In 2021, Goma was selected as the Joyce C. Willis Artist in Residence by the Amistad Center for Arts & Culture at the Wadsworth Atheneum.

Kathryn Scanlan (53) is the recipient of a 2021 Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her story collection The Dominant Animal was named a Best Book of 2020 by The Guardian, Southwest Review, and Publishers Weekly, and her first book, Aug 9—Fog, was praised in a starred review by Publishers Weekly as “an outstanding debut, profound and moving: Scanlan’s portrait of an everywoman feels entirely new.” Kick the Latch, her new novel, was published in the US by New Directions in 2022 and in the UK by Daunt Books in 2023. Her work has appeared in NOON, Granta, The Paris Review, Artforum, Another Gaze, and Harper’s. Originally from Iowa, she currently lives in Los Angeles.

Molly Schaeffer (53) works in writing and visual art. A graduate of Brown University's MFA in poetry, her chapbook, STATE ZAP,* was published by MO(0)ON/IO in 2023. She was a finalist in BOMB Magazine's 2022 Poetry Contest, and has had work in The Recluse, Prelude, The Poetry Project Newsletter, and Tagvverk. She teaches in the Summer @Brown Precollege Program at Brown University; the Language & Thinking Program at Bard College; and interdisciplinary courses online via Hugo House in Seattle. She lives in Tacoma, WA.

Abed Elmajid Shalabi (53) is a Palestinian artist living and working in Richmond, Virginia. Shalabi received an MFA in Sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2021 and a BFA in Fine Arts from Shenkar College, Israel, and the University of The Arts, Berlin, in 2019.

Shalabi participated in artist residencies at the Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture (2022) and the Richmond Visual Arts Center (2021). Shalabi's work was supported by grants from Artis, The Foundation of contemporary arts, and The Robert Weil Family Foundation. As an MFA student, he was awarded the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Graduate Fellowship and The Paul F. Miller Graduate Scholarship in Sculpture. Shalabi is a fellow Hamiltonian Artist in Washington, DC (2023-24). Shalabi had exhibitions at Hamiltonian Gallery and Terzo Piano Gallery in Washington Dc, Eden Airlines Gallery and The Anderson Gallery in Richmond, Virginia, and in project spaces and artist-run galleries in Tel Aviv and Berlin.