MoAD’s physical building may be closed due to the mandatory shelter-in-place, but you can still get your fill of art and artists of the African Diaspora. Each Wednesday at 1:00 pm PST, join MoAD staff members as we visit some of our favorite artists in their studios to see what they’re currently working on and how their work is changing as a result of the quarantine. This is a rare opportunity to hear from artists directly from their studios.

We will follow all talks with an audience Q&A.

Sophia-Yemisi Adeyemo-Ross’ portraits are love letters. Her work references photographs taken by missionary societies in West Africa at the start of the 20th century. These organizations were key players in the European economic and industrial efforts that used Christianity to obscure the exploitative practices of colonialism.

However, Adeyemo-Ross is not seeking to center instances of cultural oppression, but rather, to express reverence and love for those who lived through the attempted erasure of African tradition. Grounded by the Yoruba interlace motif, a visual symbol that represents interconnectedness between this world and the ancestral realm, Adeyemo-Ross collages portraits of individuals from archival photographs onto imagined grounds. From sweeping strokes of watercolor to acrylic paint on paper, she composes timeless and pensive landscapes in which figures reside safely away from the traumas of this world; past and present.

Sophia-Yemisi Adeyemo-Ross has been an Artist-in-Residence at Lazuli Residency in Corinth, Vermont and the New York Academy of Art. Her work has been exhibited at The Manetti Shrem Museum of Art in Davis, California and featured in "The Second Head," an exhibition curated by Armina Mussa at Office and Gallery in Los Angeles, California. She will receive her BFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in the spring of 2021.

‍See a list of our upcoming In The Artists Studio features here.

Generous support for this project provided by Art Bridges and the Westridge Foundation

This series is supported by the Facebook Art Department, UNTITLED, Art Fairs and The Art Report.