Announcing the recipient of the first annual Rubys Sponsored Residency at Art Omi

The Rubys team is delighted to announce the recipient of the first annual Rubys sponsored artist residency at Art Omi, Elissa Moorhead.  Elissa will be joining the Art Omi visual artists in residence program and participating in their open studio event this summer.  

Elissa Blount Moorhead is an artist exploring the poetics of quotidian life in film and expanded media.  Moorhead has created public art, film exhibitions, and cultural programs, and co-created multimedia projects including Random Occurrences; Cat Calls (Street Harassment project); Practicum; FunkGodJazzMedicine; and Art in Odd Places.  Recent awards include the USA Artist Award, Saul Zaentz Innovation Fellowship, Sundance Episodic Lab, Ford Foundation /Just Films/Rockwood Fellowship, Ruby Award, Creative Capital Award, and the  Baker Award Prize. Projects she has directed include; Jay Z’s short film 4:44,  a documentary on artist Damon Davis for PBS, an AR/film  a Baltimore specific site projection installation, As of A Now, and Back and Song, a four channel film installation in collaboration with filmmaker Bradford Young.  She was a 2020 resident at Eyebeam and a Sundance Episodic Lab participant  and awarded the Comedy Central Award  and the Women at Sundance Adobe Fellowship for her series co- created with her sister, writer Ericka Blount Danois, entitled fiftyTWO. She was a recent Bellagio Rockefeller Resident in Bellagio Italy,  and a  featured artist in Georgia State University’s “Liquid Blackness”. Her work has been reviewed and featured in Black Cinema & Visual Culture, Art and Politics in the 21st Century. By Artel Great, Ed Guerrero (2023) and  My Paik Nam June, a book published by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (2024)Elissa’s work accentuates the sublimity in the “mundane,”  and aims to privilege Black bodies and narratives by examining ordinary gestures. 

Elissa received her Ruby award in 2017, and we are proud to be able to partner with Art Omi to continue to support the incredible work of the artists in our alumni community. 

Art Omi: Artists invites artists, critics, and curators from around the world - representing a wide diversity of artistic styles and practices - to gather in rural New York to experiment, collaborate, and share ideas. Concentrated time for creative work is balanced with the stimulation of cultural exchange and critical appraisal. Art Omi: Artists Residency nurtures deep creative and professional connections in a vibrant social setting.

Each session, two dozen international artists are invited to the program, along with two critics/curators who participate as Critic Emeritus and Critic/Curator-In-Residence. These two individuals play a pivotal role in the residency as they facilitate discussions, help connect the artists with art world professionals through the Visitors Program, and conduct individual studio visits with the artists in residence throughout the duration of the residency session.