Meet The Final Five Artists

Nekisha Durrett

Nekisha Durrett is a mixed-media artist who employs the visual language of

mass media to bring forward histories that objects, places, and words

embody, but are not often celebrated. Her expansive practice includes

public art, social practice, installation, painting, sculpture and design.

Through deep research and material investigation, Durrett  nds historical

traces in the present that are  lled with stories easily overlooked. Her work

contemplates biases and the unreliability of memory, as information is filtered over time.

Durrett illuminates individual and collective histories of Black life and imagination, addressing her own younger self and the stories she wished she had learned. In 2023, she was the Howard University Social Justice Consortium Fellow, and a finalist for the Janet and Walter Sondheim Art Prize. Durrett has recently been awarded the commission for the ARCH Project at Bryn Mawr College in partnership with Monument Lab.

Nina Cooke John

Nina is the founding principal of Studio Cooke John Architecture and

Design, a multidisciplinary design studio that values placemaking as a way

to transform relationships between people and the built environment.

Studio Cooke John’s 'Shadow of A Face', the Harriet Tubman Monument in

Newark, NJ was unveiled in March 2023. The studio was awarded a 2021

AIA Merit Award for the public art installation, 'Point of Action',

commissioned for the Flatiron public plazas in 2020 and currently on view

at the Wassaic Project. Nina was named the AIANY New Perspectives

honoree in 2024 and a 2022 United States Artists Fellow. She is a 2024 J.

Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize recipient for Exhibit Columbus. Her work has

also been featured in Architectural Record, The New York Times,

Hyperallergic, Dwell, NBC’s Open House, and PBS NewsHour Weekend

among other publications and news outlets.

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Nina earned her Bachelor of Architecture degree from Cornell University

and a Masters in Architecture from Columbia University. She now teaches

at Columbia University.

Paul Ramirez Jonas

Paul Ramírez Jonas was born in Pomona, California and raised in Honduras. He currently lives and works in Ithaca NY. Since the 1990s, Ramirez Jonas has sought to challenge the relationship between artist, viewer, and artwork. Through his practice he seeks to challenge the definitions of art and the public and to engineer active audience participation and exchange.

Selected solo exhibitions include Museo Jumex, Mexico City; The New

Museum, NYC; Pinacoteca do Estado, Sao Paulo; The Aldrich

Contemporary Museum, Connecticut; The Blanton Museum, Texas; a

survey at Ikon Gallery (UK) and Cornerhouse (UK) in 2004, and a 25 year

survey at the Contemporary Art Museum Houston in 2017. Selected group

exhibitions at P.S.1; the Brooklyn Museum; The Whitechapel (UK); Irish

Museum of Modern Art (Ireland); and Kunsthaus Zurich.

He participated in the 1st Johannesburg Biennale; 1st Seoul Biennial; 6th Shanghai Biennial; 28th Sao Paulo Biennial; 53rd Venice Biennial and 7th and 10th Bienal do Mercosul. In 2010 his Key to the City project was presented by

Creative Time in cooperation with the City of New York and in 2022 with

Fierce and Birmingham 2022 Festival in Birmingham, UK. In 2016 his Public

Trust project was presented by Now & There in Boston.

He is a Professor and Art Department Chair, at the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning at Cornell University. His most recent project, a large-scale participatory monument, was installed in the National Mall in Washington DC in 2023 in an exhibition curated by Monument Lab.

Karyn Olivier

Karyn Olivier, who was born in Trinidad and Tobago, creates sculptures,

installations and public art. This year, Olivier will unveil a Philadelphia

memorial, commemorating more than 5,000 African Americans buried at

Bethel Burying Ground. Last year, she participated in the Whitney Biennial

(NY, NY), La Trienal at El Museo del Barrio (NY, NY), the Malta Biennale

(Valleta, Malta), and Prospect.6 Triennial (New Orleans, LA).

In 2024, Olivier also unveiled a memorial honoring a formerly enslaved servant and was selected to create a public installation in Milwaukee, memorializing Vel R. Phillips, the late politician, attorney, judge, and civil rights activist. In 2023, Olivier presented her second solo show at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery. In 2022 Olivier participated in Documenta 15 and installed a permanent commission for Newark Airport’s Terminal A.

Hank Willis Thomas

Hank Willis Thomas is a conceptual artist working primarily with themes

related to perspective, identity, commodity, media, and popular culture. His

work has been exhibited throughout the United States and abroad,

including the International Center of Photography, Guggenheim Museum

Bilbao, Musée du quai Branly, Hong Kong Arts Centre, and the Witte de

With Center for Contemporary Art.

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Select collaborative projects include 'Question Bridge: Black Males' and

'For Freedoms'. Thomas’s public art practice spans permanent artworks,

including 'The Embrace' (2023) in Boston.

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Thomas holds a B.F.A. from New York University, New York, NY (1998) and

an M.A./M.F.A. from the California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA

(2004). He received an honorary doctorate from the CCA in 2024 as well

as honorary doctorates from the Maryland Institute of Art, Baltimore, MD

and the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts, Portland, ME in

2017. Thomas was the 2022 U.S. Department of State Medal of Arts

honoree.