Columbia Artists Awarded 2025 Joan Mitchell Center Residency

Assistant Professor of Visual Arts, Director of Graduate Studies, and Concentration Head of Painting David Antonio Cruz and Visual Arts alum Gabriel Martinez ’09 are among the 35 artists—21 from across the United States and 14 local to New Orleans—selected for the upcoming residency at the Joan Mitchell Center Foundation in New Orleans.

Cruz, an interdisciplinary artist, examines the intersecting themes of queerness and race through drawing, painting, and performance. Born in Philadelphia, he received his BFA in Painting from Pratt Institute and his MFA from Yale University. His paintings have been included in notable exhibitions, including at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, El Museo del Barrio, and the Brooklyn Museum. Currently, his work is on display at ICA Boston: Portraits from the ICA Collection. This spring, he has two solo exhibitions opening: hauntme at the Halsey Institute and stay, take your time, my love at ICA San Francisco. He has been awarded several residencies and fellowships, including the Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship for Painting and Sculpture in 2018. Now, as a resident, he will expand upon his intricate, layered works, continuing to celebrate chosen families, queer histories, and the lush, colorful interiors in which his intimate portraits are often staged.  

Martinez, born near an atomic blast crater in the New Mexico desert, now lives and works in Houston, TX as an artist, writer, and performer. In Houston, he founded the experimental arts space, Alabama Song, which received a Rauschenberg SEED grant in 2016 to support its mission to foster collaboration and cultural exchange across creative disciplines. He has exhibited and performed at spaces like the Blaffer Art Museum, Artpace San Antonio, Artist’s Space, the Chinati Foundation, and the Moody Center for the Arts. He has received several grants, fellowships, and artist residencies, including the 2022 Robert and Stephanie Olmsted Fellowship at MacDowell, and recently, an Artadia Award—and he, too, returns to the Foundation, having been awarded the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant in 2019. Martinez, whose often site-specific, conceptual work explores interaction and abstraction, has been reconnecting with realism in his recent illustrations for Mark Dion's Desert Field Guide.

The Joan Mitchell Foundation is dedicated to supporting research, scholarship, and exhibitions to ensure Mitchell’s enduring influence as a widely recognized and studied artist. While Mitchell is best known for her expressive, gestural oil paintings that made her a fixture of the New York School of artists in the 1950s, her work spanned printmaking, oil pastel, and other works on paper, as well. The Joan Mitchell Center, established in 2015, furthers her legacy by offering residencies that equip artists with essential resources like studio space, financial and material support, and professional development opportunities.

This is a special year for the Foundation, as they celebrate the centenary of Mitchell’s birth as well as the tenth anniversary of the Center. “The 2025 Artists-in-Residence reflect the essence of creativity and innovation to which Joan Mitchell was so passionately committed,” said Christa Blatchford, Executive Director of the Foundation. 

“Their varied artistic practices and viewpoints extend the Foundation’s commitment to nurturing visual artists during their creative journey, and we are pleased to be able to provide them the opportunity and resources to concentrate on art-making—in particular, as we celebrate Joan Mitchell’s centennial.”