Galveston Artist Residency

Manuel Alejandro Rodríguez-Delgado (He/Him) (Bayamón, Puerto Rico, 1982) is a Puertorrican artist formerly based in Los Angeles, CA. The son of a master woodworker, he was exposed at an early age to the saint carving traditions of the island. His work has been shown in the mainland United States and Puerto Rico. He was the recipient of the two most notable artist awards offered in Puerto Rico: the Lexus Grant for Artists and the Oriental Bank Group Prize for Emerging Artists. These esteemed awards allowed him the means to pursue his MFA in sculpture at the School of The Art Institute of Chicago, where he was the recipient of the LeRoy Nieman Foundation Fellowship. Rodriguez’s work has been shown in numerous venues, most notably the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, San Juan, PR; Sullivan Galleries, Chicago, IL; The Gallery of the University of Sagrado Corazón, San Juan, PR; the Roswell Museum and Art Center, and The Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art, both in Roswell, NM. 

Rodríguez is a recent fellow of the Galveston Artist Residency in Galveston, TX, and continues to pursue his career in the mainland US. 

Jean Shon (She/Her) is an artist originally from LaMarque, Texas. Through immersive installations, photography, image-based work, and text, Jean's practice explores memory, identity, loss, and recovery in the context of family history and surrounding community. Her work centers around the preservation of narratives, modes of healing, uncovering obscure histories, and archival processes. Focusing on ruptures, fragments, and historical residue, she shows how various forms of loss—from the personal to communal—can be regenerative, serving as the connective tissue to the past.

Jean holds an MFA from the University of California-Irvine and a BS in Architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her work has been shown in various galleries throughout Southern California.

Andrew Wilson (He/Him/They/Them) is a multimedia artist working in the intersections of ritual and funerary rights honoring the deceased. About his work he writes: 

"Care is a tool of trans-dimensional travel. It looks like the fabrics my grandmother stashed under her bed after she was evicted from San Francisco. It is the difference between the handmade and the mass produced. My work, is a meditation on slow craft and how this slowness collects, amplifies and transports the viewer through care. It is the way I peer into the archive and interrogate the histories that shape the fabric of Blackness. 

I’ve been contemplating utilitarian objects and the edge of their utility – whether they be ritual or household (I guess, in a sense, they are one-in-the-same). In searching for this edge, I find myself thinking about how these objects become ways to amplify the spirit particles ingrained into their structure through human contact – like a hat, quilt or door. Once collected and amplified, these particles can be used to move across dimensions – much like the way a quilt from a loved one connects the user and maker outside of time. In essence, I am hoping to make objects that are filled with care and honor all of those who have come before and those who will come after."

Andrew Wilson received his BFA from Ohio Wesleyan University in 2013 with a concentration in Jewelry/Metals and his MFA from the University of California, Berkeley in 2017. 

Wilson’s work has been in many galleries and institutions including: The Berkeley Art Museum, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, SOMArts, and the Museum of the African Diaspora. 

He has received such awards and honors as: the Jack K. and Gertrude Murphy Award, an Emergency Grant from the Foundation of Contemporary Arts, the Carr Center Independent Scholars Fellowship, the McColl Center and more. He has also worked with Carrie Mae Weems on The Spirit that Resides in Havana, Cuba alongside the Havana Biennial and The Future is Now Parade for the opening of The REACH in Washington D.C. His work has been collected by Michigan State University and the University of New Mexico.