New Artists in Residence 2023-2024: Evelyn Mtika, Jess Levin, Schuyler Forsythe, Stephanie Perez

Virtual Meet & Greet

Clay Art Center presents a Virtual Meet & Greet with our 2023-2024 Artists In Residence and Westchester Community Foundation Fellow. Join us to learn more about these emerging artists, their work, processes and inspirations.

Presenting Artists: Schuyler Forsythe (Artist In Residence), Evelyn Mtika (Rittenberg Artist In Residence), Jess Levin (Artist In Residence) and Stephanie Perez (Westchester Community Foundation Fellow).

*This Virtual Event was originally aired Monday, December 4th, 2023 7pm Eastern Time via Zoom.

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Evelyn Mtika (she / her)
2023-2024 Rittenberg Artist-in-Residence

Evelyn Mtika has been working with clay for just shy of 3 years. Her work includes portraiture, figures, text, and is focused on exploring intertwined cultural connections and differences. She is interested in exploring how black femininity and culture is interwoven through hair, faces, and patterns. She pulls her inspiration from different aspects of her own background, having grown up within and between a Black and African diasporic household. She received her BFA from University of Hartford with a focus in ceramics and painting.

Jess Levin (they / them)
Artist-in-Residence, 2023-2024

Jess Levin earned a BFA from the State University of New York at Purchase, NY, concentrating in ceramics with hints of fabrics to show the balance between the soft and the fragile. They were most recently the 2022–23 Westchester Community Foundation Fellow at Clay Art Center. They use a bright, colorful, cartoonish sculpting style to bring to life a narrative of self-exploration and expression.

Schuyler Forsythe (she / her)
2023-2024 Artist-in-Residence

Schuyler Forsythe is a Hudson Valley native who received her BFA from SUNY New Paltz with a concentration in ceramics, and has worked as a studio assistant for artists throughout the country.

Her works have been exhibited in group shows in the Hudson Valley, as well as artist markets in NY and OR. Schuyler's work has mostly been inspired by bi-coastal living and the vast American landscape, though with this most recent body of work the artist is exploring ancestral narratives through sculpture and ornamentation. Schuyler's sculptural forms inspired by the natural world, push the traditional limitations of clay as she reimagines the world around her.

Stephanie Perez (she / her)
2023-2024 Westchester Community Foundation Fellow

Stephanie Perez (Westchester Community Fellow) is an emerging ceramic artist and instructor with a BS in psychology and sociology from Fordham University. Drawing inspiration from her academic background, her artwork challenges established notions and invites contemplation about the interplay between familiarity and humanity.

While Stephanie's sculptures often portray exaggerated features and proportions, they never lose their profound humanistic essence. Through manipulation of facial expressions, sometimes even through the absence of a face, she evokes a wide range of emotions in her artwork. Stephanie's exploration extends to various glazing and finishing techniques, enabling her pieces to transcend boundaries, pushing the likeness to the human form. Stephanie strives to further push these boundaries of physical likeness, all while maintaining a strong sense of relatability to the human experience.