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Mary B. Howard Invitational

Guest Curated by Liz Ensz

February 1 – May 18, 2025

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Introduction

Every two years, Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art (Tephra ICA) presents the Mary B. Howard Invitational, a group exhibition featuring the work of regional contemporary artists. For each iteration of the show, Tephra ICA works with a guest curator to produce the exhibition through an open call for artists. This program values exhibition-making as a meaningful collaboration between artist and curator and a generative process that feeds the development and public presentation of innovative new work. The Invitational is named in memory of Mary B. Howard, an artist, long-time board member, and staunch supporter of Tephra ICA.

About the Exhibition

This year, Guest Curator Liz Ensz will work with the three selected artists to develop a group exhibition, for which each artist creates and presents new work.

This exhibition will focus on the associative power of materials, and how they contribute to the meaning of the artwork, with a focus on textile practices. Because of the way that information becomes encoded within textiles, they have the power to embody and express culture. Interconnection is a fundamental quality of textile construction, and social interconnection is a fundamental aspect of their production. The flexible language of loops, knots, interlacements, and attachments all speak to the relationships of which our world is made. The cumulative and entangled way of building, joining many parts together as one, and organic growth taking place over time through repetition, echoes ecological, social, and political systems.

 

Selected Artists

Mary B. Howard Invitational - Exhibitions - Tephra ICA

Danyela Brown

Danyela Brown is a set-maker from South Arlington who self-identifies as a transmulatta military-brat and constructs transutilitarian sets via open-source software, surplus material, and movement. She was raised in church, and has trained with the Peridance Custodians, Hood By Air Museum, and in the Ballroom Scene. Danyela holds a BA in African American Studies from Stanford University; she was expelled from the New Genres MFA at UCLA while having bottom-surgery. She has presented sets at PSNY, Hamiltonian Artists, and the Hirshhorn Museum Sculpture Garden; has completed EMERGENYC (2020), the Education Fellowship at Dia Art Foundation (2019-2021), and the DHS Peer Case Management Institute at Howard University School of Social Work (2024). Danyela has performed with Kiyan Williams, Rashad Pridgen, Aleta Hayes, Olaiya, Olayemi and Hushidar Mortezaie; and she has curated Deeds for AIRs, Stevfni.xyz, Pussy Noir, ace ono, and others.

Mary B. Howard Invitational - Exhibitions - Tephra ICA

Devin Harclerode

Devin Harclerode is a transdiscplinary artist and educator that uses speculative discourse to rival oppressive phenomena in contemporary society. Harclerode holds an MFA in Painting + Printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University, and a BFA in Painting from The University of Florida. She has exhibited nationally including in New York, NY; Los Angeles, CA; Portland, OR; and Miami, FL. Recent solo exhibitions include Soft Body, No Limbs at Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Greenville, SC; Boundaries at Museum of Contemporary Art, Salt Lake City, UT; and Prolapse at Public Pool Gallery, Los Angeles. Devin was born and raised in Florida and currently lives in Richmond, VA.

Mary B. Howard Invitational - Exhibitions - Tephra ICA

Nadia Nazar

Nadia Nazar (b. 2002) is a sculptor, animator, climate organizer, and musician based in Baltimore, MD. She was born and raised in Baltimore County Maryland, but calls Kerala, India her homeland. Her work delves into her relationship with the lands she has resided on, and the structures in place that have impacted and exploited both the land and (her) people.

Her sculptural body of work primarily consists of metalworking, casting, and biofabrication. Her animation work tells stories through experimental animation, especially puppet stop-motion and alternative processes in photography.

Nadia’s work has been exhibited in multiple exhibitions throughout Baltimore and recently at the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum. Nadia co-founded Zero Hour, an international youth climate organization and served as its Co-Executive Director and Art Director for four years. She has been featured in The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, i-D, Vox, Huffington Post, USA Today, and more for work in the Climate Movement. Nadia received a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Interdisciplinary Sculpture and Animation, and currently resides in Baltimore, Maryland.

About the Guest Curator

Liz Ensz was born in Minnesota to a resourceful family of penny-savers, metal scrappers, and curators of cast-offs. Liz received a BFA in Fiber from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and an MFA in Fiber and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. With an interdisciplinary approach, their works of installation, textile, and sculpture present a comparative study of the mass-cultural investment in disposability and the human desire to imagine permanence through emblems, monuments, and commemoration. In fall 2018, Ensz joined MICA as full-time faculty in the Fiber department.

Ensz has exhibited their work internationally, including at The Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, UK; Frontviews Gallery, Berlin, Germany; Museum of Contemporary Art, Arlington, VA; Franconia Sculpture Park, Shafer, MN; Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY; Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY; Roots and Culture Contemporary Art Center, Chicago, IL; Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA; The Mission, Chicago, IL; Unsmoke Systems, Pittsburgh, PA; The Current Space, Baltimore, MD; and Goucher College, Baltimore, MD.

They have been awarded residencies at The John Michael Kohler Arts/Industry Program in Foundry, Sheboygan, WI; Franconia Sculpture Park, Shafer, MN; Salem Art Works, Salem, NY; Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL; Playa, Summer Lake, OR; LATITUDE, Chicago, IL; and Blue Mountain Center, Blue Mountain Lake, NY. Among other awards, they have been the recipient of City of Chicago DCASE Individual Artist Grant, The Creative Baltimore Fund Grant, The Clare Rosen and Samuel Edes Fellowship Semi-finalist Prize, The Gilroy Roberts Fellowship for Engraving, and The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Travel Fellowship.

As an extension of their art practice, they have worked collaboratively to create platforms for others, including as Associate Director of The Visitor Center Artist Camp and Sustainable Practice Symposium, an artist residency in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan; and as a member of the Leadership Team for FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture, which includes coordinating the 2019 display of The Monument Quilt at the National Mall in Washington DC.

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