Alia Bensliman
2024-2025 Artist-in-Residence
My artwork is contemporary art drawings that reflect my view of life and my sentiments about the current state of our society, socio political issues, taboos, religion, relationships, health, and human rights. It is also a depiction of my past experiences and how they have influenced me. My artwork is also a sort of diary of my everyday life. I like to use a combination of intricate lines, shapes and repetitive patterns that I usually enhance with colors, ink, gold and silver paint and watercolors to create the desired textures and intensity mostly on Arch paper.
I have been interested and attracted to art and drawing since my early childhood. I grew up in Tunisia, North Africa. Tunisia is at a crossroad of eastern and ancient art and cultures on one hand and western more contemporary art on the other. My art reflects a fusion of east and west with a penchant for North African and Berber art.
Frontline Arts
2023-2024 Artistic Community Partner
Frontline Arts, formerly known as the Printmaking Center of New Jersey (PCNJ), was incorporated on December 10, 1974. Originally founded as the Printmaking Council of New Jersey, Founders Lois Berghoff, Zelda Burdick, Florence Wender, Carol Yudin and Peter Chapin, envisioned an organization that would help local artists as well as promote the fine art of printmaking statewide.
In 2018, the Printmaking Center of New Jersey merged with its fiscal project known as Frontline Arts, originally founded under PCNJ in 2011 as Combat Paper NJ. This unique community-oriented Veterans’ papermaking program taught Veterans of all service eras and branches the transformational practice of making handmade paper from military uniforms. Through a process of Deconstruction, Reclamation, and Communication, Veterans connect with each other and different communities, sharing their personal stories with the world through handmade paper, printmaking, and participatory artmaking.
stay.together. a vigil for veterans
The LOTUS Project partnered with Frontline Arts to display artwork created on paper made from military uniforms during the 2023 Veteran's Day concert at the Patriot Theater at the War Memorial in Trenton. Over 500 audience members attended. Frontline Arts expresses the concept:
"All veterans have a story to tell. For too long, we have lived in a day and age where veterans tend to suppress their experiences – producing a culture of the “silent veteran.” Frontline Paper (formerly known as Combat Paper NJ) is a unique art project that offers artistic tools and professional instruction for all, providing a space to use art and writing to explore experiences, and ultimately share them publicly, all through papermaking."
Chee Bravo
2022-2023 Artist-in-Residence
Chee Bravo is a multimedia artist and printmaker. Her multimedia focuses on creating interactive installations where she draws the audience into her personal experiences. Her ongoing performer series capture moments of joie de vivre in carefully chosen subjects through color and movement. The use of current technology to initially create a digital collage then revert back to the traditional silkscreening medium is key to her artmaking.
Chee received her BFA in printmaking at the Florida International University (FIU) in Miami. She has exhibited nationally and internationally and received multiple awards throughout her career. Her prints and paintings can be found in the Trenton City Museum & Mercer County Culture & Heritage permanent collections, NJ, the FIU permanent collection, FL, the Brooklyn Art Library, NY, Frontline Arts of NJ and private collections. She is a 2022 recipient of a New Jersey Council on the Arts Fellowship. She lives and works in Trenton, New Jersey.
path of miracles
Artist-In-Residence Chee Bravo was an invaluable creative team member for the season, especially in regards to producing Joby Talbot’s Path of Miracles. Her artwork took centerstage to anchor the four movements of the musical story:
After listening to Path of Miracles, reading interpretations of it, and viewing Youtube videos of pilgrimages, Chee created four 8’ by 12’ banners, each depicting a scene that captures the tone and meaning of its corresponding movement. She viewed the banners as four stations, akin to the twelve stations of the cross. To make the banners, Chee produced a series of four silkscreens derived from her digital collages of images found along El Camino.*
Tamara Torres
2021-2022 Inaugural Artist-in-Residence
Tamara Torres is an interdisciplinary Afro-Caribbean feminist artist, community activist, and mother based in Trenton, New Jersey. Torre's artistic work is varied and presented in multiple mediums such as collaged narrative, mindscape abstract paintings, and performance. Her art and praxis are directly tied to her own family and experience, addressing advocacy for women's rights, racial equity, the stigma of mental illness, among other topics.
inaugural artist-in-residence
Tamara Torres paints live during "Keeping Vigil" at Artworks Trenton in May 2022.
Inaugural Artist-In-Residence, Tamara Torres, had an incredible impact on the first season. Not only was her artwork leased for concert programs and posters, she asked to paint live during one of our concerts in the spring (left). Her artwork seeks to engage the viewer in a story - a perfect pairing with our concerts.
Tamara’s art has been exhibited in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, London, Edinburgh, Rome and elsewhere. In 2022, she was selected to be an art ambassador for the international women's day Art Connects Women event in Dubai, U.A.E. She sold three original paintings through her engagement with The LOTUS Project.