Philadelphia Fellowship for Black Artists Cohort 2025: Creating a Vibe, Building a Tribe.
It took time, care, and deep reflection for myself and the committee to thoughtfully review each fellowship application. We read artist statements with intention, explored websites and Instagrams, and dug deeper when we sensed the full brilliance of someone’s work hadn’t yet come through in their initial materials. After this deep dive, I’m thrilled to introduce our 2025 Mural Arts Fellowship for Black Artists cohort — a vibrant, dynamic group whose practices span painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture, ceramics, and environmental art.
As we step into year six of the fellowship, I can say with certainty that we’ve only just scratched the surface of the brilliance within Philadelphia’s Black artists. Each year, we face the challenge of narrowing down to just 15 fellows and, each year, we’re reminded of the wealth of creativity, vision, and power that surrounds us in this city.
As I reflect on how the fellowship has grown and evolved, I’m reminded of a speech by Alberto Ibargüen, the President of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. He spoke about the kind of art that binds people to place and one another and the power of thoughtful, strategic giving. His words have stayed with me. In particular, he said that over ten years of trial and effort, they’d come to know three things for sure:
One: Leverage a community’s natural assets.
We’re doing just that — with this fellowship, with our artists, and with the 100 incredible individuals who have now come through the program.
Two: Fund both institutions and emerging artists to create momentum.
TD Bank does that generously by sponsoring this fellowship, making space for both infrastructure and experimentation.
Three: Intensify the impact by narrowing geographic focus.
That’s why we prioritize artists who live and work right here in Philadelphia.
Ibargüen said, when programming, philanthropy, and strategic vision come together, with art at the center, we get something beautiful: better art, deeper community, and support for risk and consistency alike. We keep going until we reach critical mass. And the results speak for themselves.
We live in a city where art is alive, public, and deeply accessible — a city where murals speak across walls, blocks, and generations. And this fellowship is about more than skill-building. Yes, we believe in teaching people to fish — but we’re also here for the vibe. We’re here to build a tribe. A community of artists who uplift, support, and celebrate one another.
With these 15 new fellows and the 85 who came before them, we’re cultivating a network of artists and supporters, each of whom is ready to give to the next cohort, thrive in Philadelphia (and beyond), and build a future together.
So here’s to year six:
More curatorial support. More studio visits.
A deeper focus on mental wellness.
Our annual exhibition.
More networking, more public art, and more pathways into galleries, institutions, and beyond.
Let’s go.
We’re ready.
Meet the 2025 Fellows:
Malayah Reynolds
“My name is MiaRlin and I’m from North Philadelphia. I am a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University with a major in Fine Arts. I began making art with graphite/charcoal materials, where I created these hyper-realistic portraits that explore the essence of friends and family. In my current practice, I’ve found a connection with oil painting. A medium that became very meditative for me. Painting offers me liberation that my meticulous pencil drawings do not. I experiment with textures to amplify internal discomfort, exposing the body in its most vulnerable state. I do this by using food-related tools or condiments to tap into the visceral link between the gut and brain axis.”
Kameo Chambers
Kameo Chambers (Philadelphia, PA) is a Jamaican American conceptual artist, filmmaker, and curator who reimagines cultural memory and perception through digital and physical assemblages. Working with mediums such as AR/VR, glass, photogrammetry, and print, her archive-based practice creates surreal, hyper-realized landscapes that interrogate autonomy, material culture, and the aesthetics of Black femme embodiment.
Her work has been exhibited at Kungliga Musikhögskolan (Sweden), Cultural DC, Grace Exhibition Space (NYC), Brooklyn Free Speech TV (NYC), The Institute of Electronic Arts (NY), Vox Populi (PA), and the University of Pittsburgh (PA), among others. She has been recognized as a Vira I. Heinz Scholar and awarded First Place with Special Merit from the American Scholastic Press Association (2021–22). Chambers holds a BA in Interdisciplinary Arts from the University of Pittsburgh and an MFA in Electronic Integrated Arts from Alfred University. Her work is a part of the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford’s public collection, and she was recently an artist-in-residence at the Keyes Residency (ME).
Zakia Elliott
Zakia M. Elliott is an organizer, educator, facilitator, artist, and Philadelphia native working within the intersections of the environmental justice, climate justice, and food and land justice movements. She is Co-Director of Soil Generation, a Black & Brown grassroots agroecology collective of women, farmers, and organizers working for food and land justice in Philadelphia.
As an artist, Zakia engages in the transformative healing practice of self-reflection through self-portraiture. Over the years, she has cultivated a ritual of introspection through her figurative art and the exploration of various mediums to express her evolving self-conception. This artistic practice has been instrumental in regulating her emotions and navigating the complexities of her experiences as a Black woman striving for liberation and justice. Through her art, Zakia finds grounding in her spirit and truth.
“I see my art practice as inseparable from my movement work and commitment to building toward liberation. My passion for self-portraiture is a radical practice of self-love and acceptance. I return to self-portraits and offer them as a tool to uproot the internalized capitalist pattern of perpetual striving for change, growth, and action—a mindset often embraced by many changemaking kinfolk—by encouraging stillness, vulnerability, and devotion through their creation.”
Tina Furr
Tina (she/they) is a self-taught artist, born and raised in Philadelphia. They explore digital illustration and accessible creativity as a practice for healing and disruption.
Tisha (Tee) Taylor
Tee Taylor is a Philadelphia-born artist known for her bold, three-dimensional artwork that redefines traditional portraiture. Raised in West Philadelphia and inspired by her grandmother, a professional painter, Tee began her artistic journey at a young age. By sixteen, she was hand-binding books and creating pop-up art, foreshadowing her passion for layered, tactile storytelling. She honed her skills at the Creative and Performing Arts High School and later at Moore College of Art & Design, where she developed her signature style. But after school, life took her in a different direction- Tee stepped away from canvas for nearly 20 years.
It wasn’t until the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic that she picked up the brush again. Fueled by a renewed purpose, Tee left her job and returned to art full-time, reigniting her creative fire and taking the art world by storm.
As the founder of Taylored Faces, Tee offers creative services like face painting, balloon twisting, live painting, and mural creation. Her striking, dimensional portraits are deeply emotive and visually captivating, often blurring the lines between painting and sculpture.
Her work has been featured in the Athenaeum of Philadelphia, Urban Art Gallery, and the Community Gallery, and Sixth Street District museums (Eureka School), earning her recognition as a powerful voice in Philadelphia’s contemporary art scene.
Keiko Bisa Elan El
Keiko Bisa Elan El is a South Jersey-born (Philly-based) multi-disciplinary artist, archivist, and film photographer, who takes an anthropological approach in creating transcendent realities.
Inspired by films with valor and fantasy-centered themes that she would watch with her late father (The Black Cauldron, The NeverEnding Story, and The Pagemaster, to name a few) and directors like Guillermo Del Toro, Hayao Miyazaki, and M. Night Shyamalan, Keiko finds comfort in everyday storytelling.
Through her practice, she’s established an intuitive process that allows her to alchemize her imagination into a cinematic universe. She believes valuable storytelling builds on an intimate connection between an artist’s vision and the parallel of their lived experiences and ancestral memory.
Keiko stands feet planted at the intersection of Black femininity, pleasure, and spirituality, and she takes immense pride in unifying these pieces of herself to evoke an emotional response through her work.
She invites her audience to interpret her visual practice and the beauty of nuance in tandem, as she re-imagines the world with a more expansive lens.
Temple Douglass
Temple Douglass (b. 2000, Columbus, GA) is a Philadelphia-based artist working primarily with the figure. Her charcoal drawings are explorations of isolation, melancholy, and introspection, featuring intimate and quiet imagery of people important to her. Temple received a BFA in Drawing and Painting from the University of Georgia in 2023 and is the AXA Art Prize 2nd Prize Winner for that year. Her work has been published in Black Art Magazine and Stillpoint Literary Magazine. Her recent exhibitions include The Female Gaze at Da Vinci Art Alliance and With All My Heart at The People’s Gallery in Philadelphia.
Jazlyne Sabree
Jazlyne Sabree (b. 1990, New Jersey) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Philadelphia. She received her Bachelor’s in Art from Clark Atlanta University, an HBCU in Atlanta, GA, where she studied art and journalism. She then went on to become an art educator, returning to college to receive her Master’s in Art Education at Boston University. She received her Master’s in Fine Art at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. She is a recipient of the Clark Atlanta University Art Guild Award, the Linda Lora Pugliese Award for Excellence in Art Education, the PAFA Venture Fund Grant, MassMoCA Artist Residency, and the AACC Fellowship at the Montclair Art Museum.
Additionally, she has been featured on platforms such as News 12, WHYY, several podcasts such as The Truth In This Art, and in many publications. She was also awarded a teaching artist residency in Monrovia, Liberia, in West Africa, at the Cachelle International Creative Arts Center, as well as the Casa Na Ilha Artist Residency in Ilhabela, São Paolo, Brazil. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Waldemar Belisário Museum in Ilhabela, São Paolo, Brazil, and the PAFA Museum in Philadelphia, along with many other private collections.
Jermaine Ollivierre
Jermaine Ollivierre was born and raised in West Philadelphia. He survived the 1985 MOVE bombing, which significantly impacted his upbringing and art practice. Ollivierre earned his AFA at Delaware County Community College in 2013, and received his BFA in Sculpture at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art in 2021. He recently graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University, known for its top-ranked Graduate Sculpture program, with an MFA degree in Sculpture and Extended Media.
Ollivierre’s work centers on those who have been misunderstood and rejected by society. He addresses the complex American landscape, depicting both beautiful and deplorable moments intertwined in society. Through his work, Ollivierre creates opportunities for dialogue using his experience in urban, rural, and suburban environments as source material to dissolve inflexible viewpoints.
His work has been exhibited at various prestigious galleries and institutions, including the 1708 Gallery in Richmond, VA, The Anderson Gallery at Virginia Commonwealth University, The Automat Collective, The Stella Elkins Tyler Gallery, The Art Gallery at Delaware County Community College, Mural Arts Philadelphia’s Commonwealth Gallery, Asian Arts Initiative, Art in City Hall, and The Da Vinci Art Alliance. His work has also been featured in publications and interviews such as The Artblog, DCCC’s Ignite Magazine 2022-23 issue, WHYY, Queens Tribune, Call and Response Journal, Delaware County Community College’s The Communitarian, and The Tab. Jermaine Ollivierre currently lives and works in Pennsylvania, where he serves as a faculty member in the Art Foundation program at Delaware County Community College.
Allegra Norris
Allegra Yvonne Gia is a visual artist whose practice includes film, painting, illustration, and animation. Her style of work is influenced by pop culture, Afro-futurism, and surrealism.
Anne Adams
Anne Adams (born 1993) is a multidisciplinary artist from Nigeria. She received her MFA from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In recent years, Adams has participated in shows in the USA, UK, France, and Africa. She has participated in residences including Haystack Mountain School of Craft’s open studio residency and the Watershed Center for ceramic art.
Adams has shown in Fairs including the Salon Revelation Biennial in Paris, Art X Lagos, 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London, NADA Miami, and NADA New York. She is a recipient of the NCECA Multicultural fellowship 2023 and the Simone Leigh Zenobia award 2023. She was recognized by the Lagos State Government as one of the 100 women making a change in Lagos, Nigeria, for her contribution to the arts.
Levester Williams
Levester Williams (b. Lansing, MI) is a sculptor whose praxis is deeply rooted in aesthetic and critical inquiries into modes of existence and existing. Questions arising from the politics and poetics of identity, space/place, and boundary congeal into forms of sculptures, installations, drawings, sound, code, and the moving image.
Williams received an MFA in Sculpture + Extended Media from Virginia Commonwealth University, a Master of Computer and Information Technology from the University of Pennsylvania, and a BFA in Art and Design from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His works have been included in exhibitions at San José Museum of Art, San José, CA; N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Art, Detroit, MI; Institute for Contemporary Art, Richmond, VA; and, among others, Museum of African Design, Johannesburg, South Africa. His selected residencies include Skowhegan’s School of Painting and Sculpture, Madison, Maine; Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, Vermont; and the Bag Factory, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Prince De León
Prince De León is a 24-year-old painter from Monrovia, Liberia, who holds a BFA with honors from the University of the Arts. Her artistic practice is deeply rooted in material exploration and Black reclamation art. She draws inspiration from renowned artists such as Gerald Lovell, Amoako Boafo, Kerry James Marshall, and Zanele Muholi, whose expressive portrayals of Black figures and culture resonate strongly in her work.
Like these artists, De León masterfully conveys the physicality and essence of her materials, emphasizing that Blackness is multifaceted, intricate, and profoundly beautiful. During her time at university, she achieved academic excellence, including a place on the Dean’s List and prestigious honors such as a nomination to apply to the Yale Norfolk School of Art.
Her work has been exhibited in notable shows, including the Germantown Art and Sound pop-up show, the UArts Art Alliance, and the 2024 Bridgette Mayer Benefit Exhibition. Prince envisions continuing to showcase her work both across the United States and internationally.
Larry Fullwood Jr aka ASHY ARTT
ASHY ARTT is a visual artist from Jacksonville, Florida, currently working in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His work deals with the black experience, pop culture, community, as well as the intersections of emotion and the body autonomy of his subject.
Although specializing in acrylic paint, he is skilled in various 2D mediums, including charcoal, graphite, and ink. He has studied at Lavilla School of the Arts, Douglas Anderson School of the Arts and takes pride in being a repeat Scholastic Art and Writing award winner. ASHY ARTT is currently pursuing a BFA in Painting at Temple University.
Diyaaldin Kelley
Diyaaldin Kelley is a visual artist with a unique background as a former professional basketball player. Blending precision and emotion, he specializes in portrait painting and the creation of custom frames that elevate each piece into a one-of-a-kind experience. His work is rooted in storytelling, capturing not just likeness but the spirit of his subjects.
Off the canvas, Diyaaldin enjoys photography and has a passion for collecting vintage cameras—a pursuit that informs his artistic eye and deepens his appreciation for form, light, and composition.
Whether through brushstrokes or lens, Diyaaldin is constantly exploring new ways to frame the human experience.
