Untitled Art Houston

- LA VAUGHN BELLE

La Vaughn Belle challenges viewers to confront the layered complexities of history, nature, and memory. In her recent collages, she reimagines the Caribbean landscape in the aftermath of natural disasters, transforming scenes of destruction into powerful reflections on resilience. These works honor the enduring strength and tenacity of Caribbean communities, offering visual narratives of survival, adaptation, and the shaping of collective remembrance.

Belle holds an MFA from the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, Cuba, and both an MA and BA from Columbia University in New York. She has exhibited her work at numerous museums and institutions, including the Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico, San Juan, PR; Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York, NY; Clark Atlanta University Art Museum, Atlanta, GA; the African American Museum, Philadelphia, PA; El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY; Casa de las Américas, Havana, Cuba; the Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco, CA; the National Museum of Denmark and Kunsthal Charlottenborg, both in Copenhagen, Denmark; and the National Nordic Museum, Seattle, WA, among others.

Her work is included in the collections of the National Photography Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark; Vestsjælland Museum, Denmark; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Weltkulturen Museum, Frankfurt, Germany; the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Juan, Puerto Rico; and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA. She has received numerous grants and awards, including the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant in 2019 and the Danish Arts Council Project Distinction Award in 2023.

- BRANDON J. DONAHUE-SHIPP

Brandon J. Donahue-Shipp’s acclaimed series "Basketball Bloom" transforms searched for and found basketballs into intricate, mandala-like compositions. The basketball, recast as a symbol of renewed dreams and possibility, blooms within these symmetrical arrangements, evoking themes of resilience, aspiration, and collective memory.

Donahue-Shipp's new sculpture "A monument to scrimmage" examines manhood within the context of sport. This work consists of wooden cubes wrapped in AstroTurf marked with football field lines. Through this material, he explores how competition, power, and performance can be shaped, contained, and redefined. Its verticality evokes the presence of a monument, the playfulness of a toy, or the solemnity of a tombstone, inviting viewers to project their own reflections. Donahue-Shipp questions how symbols of manhood are constructed, repurposed, or distorted within cultural and personal narratives.

Brandon J. Donahue-Shipp received his BFA from Tennessee State University and his MFA from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He has exhibited nationally and internationally at the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY; Banneker-Douglass Museum, Annapolis, MD; Frist Museum, Nashville, TN; the 13th Havana Biennial, Matanzas, Cuba; Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center, Bowling Green, KY; Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, GA; McKenna Museum, New Orleans, LA; ATHICA: Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, Athens, GA; and many others.

He is the recipient of the MSAC Public Art Across Maryland Planning Grant, the Tanne Foundation Award, and numerous other awards and grants. His work resides in several permanent collections, including the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY; Metro Arts Nashville, Nashville, TN; Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN; Banneker-Douglass Museum, Annapolis, MD; Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Gatlinburg, TN; and the Cordish Collection, Hanover, MD.

- RAYMOND SAÁ

Raymond Saá is a Cuban-American artist. Like Miró, Saá employs an abstract visual language that remains rooted in the concrete and observational. More broadly, his work is inspired by the vitality and diversity of culture itself, drawing on Cuban jazz music as well as Cuban theater—musical comedies, zarzuelas, serious dramas, and one-act farces known as sainetes—all of which explore persona and identity.

Saá received his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and his MFA from Parsons School of Design. He has exhibited at Untitled Art Miami Beach; White Columns, New York, NY; Queens Museum, Bulova Center, Queens, NY; Drawing Rooms, Jersey City, NJ; Chautauqua Visual Arts Gallery, Chautauqua, NY; Museum of Contemporary Art, Santa Barbara, CA; Islip Museum, Islip, NY; and Hunterdon Art Museum, Clinton, NJ, among others.

His work is held in the permanent collections of the Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL; New Orleans Museum of Art, LA; Queens Museum of Art, NY; and NYC Public Art for Public Schools, NY. In 2023, the Philadelphia Museum of Art commissioned Saá, along with four other artists, to create new work inspired by the exhibition Matisse in the 1930s.

His awards and residencies include the Joan Mitchell Center Artist-in-Residence Program, New Orleans, LA; the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, New York, NY; the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant, New York, NY; and a Public Art for Public Schools commission for PS 357X in New York, NY.

For more information or inquiries, please contact us at mail@pentimenti.com or 215.625.9990.