Young, Gifted and IcoKnick at St. Cloud

Ronald Draper

Ronald Draper (b. 1986) is a New York based artist specializing in expressionist mixed media works for both residential and commercial spaces. His blend of multiple materials and use of language produces work that is appealing to both your sense of sight and your sense of self.

Draper’s passion for art and education has made him an effective change agent, partnering with New York City schools to develop new creative approaches to how a school’s norms and values are experienced when artistic decisions are made in the reflection of student and community identity. His large art installations and his art derivatives allow his culturally responsive content to impact over 100,000 people daily.

Draper has exhibited at Scope International Art Show, The Bishop Gallery, The Montclair Art Museum, Amnesty International. He has art that resides in the permanent collection of Harlem Hospital and has had murals shown on Netflix, VH1, and Amazon Prime original programming. Special projects include: Nike, (Product)RED, Wells Fargo Bank, Starbucks, T-Mobile, Source Magazine, The City University of New York, and The Girl Scouts of Greater New York. Draper has been honored by the New York Urban League and the NAACP.

Sophia Victor

Sophia Victor, 31, is a Brooklyn based visual artist who has dedicated her life’s work to ministry (service.) Her multidisciplinary practice includes portraiture, performance, public art and video. She uses her platform and influence as an artist to expose the narratives and experiences of people who individually and collectively face injustice. Through her work she aims to humanize social justice issues and to prevent such experiences from being repeated in the future.

Sophia holds a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the School of Visual Arts and a master’s degree in visual arts administration from New York University. Her work has recently been exhibited in galleries and art fairs throughout the country and recently at the Bronx Museum for the Arts. Sophia is a recent participant of the Whitney Museum Independent Study program, University Settlement’s Performance Project Residency program, and the Bronx Museum of Art’s first residency program. She has been commissioned to create public art projects and interventions by Amnesty International and the Vera Institute of Justice.

Victor facilitates art workshops at Rikers Island through Artistic Noise, a nonprofit that serves court involved youth and is also a participant in the Rikers Island Faith in Re-entry program where she mentors young adults while they are behind bars and after their release. Some of the subjects of her artistic practice include mothers who have lost their children to police brutality both past and present, the Exonerated 5, and political prisoners from the Black Liberation movement that are still incarcerated within the United States. She works closely with the individuals represented in her work through handwritten letter correspondence to prison institutions, visits, and participating in fundraising events and advocacy efforts for each individual.

Tramel Blount

Tramel Blount is a 31 year old artist born and living in Brooklyn N.Y. Blount recieved his Bachelors of Fine Arts from University of Delaware. Using a variety of mediums, Blount’s work reflects a unique perspective of urban culture. Using an array of techniques, Blount intertwines classical art with contemporary. Often inspired by surrealist esthetics, he reinterprets these ideas through his own creative lense. Ultimately, Blount endeavors to remind us all we can change the world by inspiring others by using art, the universal language.

Quiana Parks

Quiana Parks is a contemporary, multidisciplinary artist, who has achieved a level of success as a performance artist, DJ and creative influencer. Her success stems from her commitment and passion for her visual arts practice. Since she was old enough to hold a paintbrush or oil stick, Parks has explored the visual image. Her paintings are soaked in the rich tradition of her childhood community of Paterson, New Jersey and her current Brooklyn, New York residence. Creativity and strength, blossomed through 13 years of surviving Lymphoma, have been documented on canvas, wood and gently strewn sheets of paper. The artist paints poetically her resilience seen through her selection of rich colors of deep mahogany, blues and berry tones.