Meet the Artists: The Nature of Family Portraits

Destiny Belgrave was born and raised in Brooklyn NY and nurtured, with a Bajan and African American upbringing. Belgrave graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in 2018 with a BFA in General Fine Arts, and a concentration in Painting. Since then her work has been shown locally and internationally. She is currently a 2021-2022 resident of SmackMellon studio residency in Brooklyn, NY. Belgrave is a mixed-media artist, using papercuts as her primary medium and family as a source of inspiration.

Jesse Bandler Firestone is Assistant Curator at Wave Hill. He has been making exhibitions and fostering artist-driven initiatives for over a decade at artist-run venues, civic institutions and cultural centers. Firestone is committed to interdisciplinary practices, creating accessible programs and nurturing a broad range of perspectives that reflect our times. Firestone reveres the creative power of artists as a potent connective force and through exhibition-making channels, distills and engages in the worlds, ideas and affects that artists put forth. Firestone earned a BFA in photography from Washington University in St. Louis and an MA in curatorial practice from the School of Visual Arts.

Maia Cruz Palileo is a multidisciplinary, Brooklyn-based artist. They completed a BA in Studio Art from Mount Holyoke College in 2001, and earned an MFA in Sculpture from Brooklyn College in 2008. In 2015, they attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Madison, ME. They are a recipient of the Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Program Grant, the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant, the NYFA Painting Fellowship, the Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Award and the Astraea Visual Arts Fund Award.