Summer 2021 M-TAC Gallery

TeenTix works in collaboration with The Colorization Collective, a teen-led organization which promotes diversity in the arts, to present the M-TAC program.

The Summer 2021 M-TAC Cohort focused on Visual Arts and Performing Arts. The Visual Arts cohort was mentored by Perri Rhoden and the cohort of performing artists was mentored by UJ Mangune. Enjoy this gallery of art created during this mentorship!

Visual Arts Cohort with Perri Rhoden

My name is Makeda Armstrong, I'm a digital artist who resides in New York and currently I'm going to college for digital arts. My big dream is to produce my own cartoon and make my own indie video games.

I'm currently working on a piece that will celebrate Hindu culture by depicting the Hindu holiday, Holi. I have recently entered numerous art competitions and am looking to exhibit and sell my work in art galleries as well as local businesses such as cafes and restaurants throughout New York City. I was selected to be a part of the Summer Arts Mentorship Program hosted by the Colorization Collective partnered with TeenTix. My “Importance of Community” piece has been selected for publishing through the Celebrating Art Competition.

My name is Moon, and I’m a high school senior from Queens, New York. Art has always been my hobby since I was a child and recently I’ve discovered my passion for creating art based on my surroundings and experiences. I love to carry my sketchbook with me wherever I go to do live sketching of the people, objects and places around me, it’s a way for me to document the beauty I experience. Art reflecting the naturalness of life speaks to me. The following painting depicts a hotpot I cooked with my friends. It represents the comfort and fullness I feel that comes with food and old relationships.

My name is Piper Hess and I am a 15 year old artist aspiring to be an animator. I love working with mediums such as colored pencils, oil pastels and more. My favorite thing to do however is to write and illustrate comics. I also hope one day to attend art school. TeenTix really helped me find people in the art community who were just like me. Seeing this representation was incredibly inspiring as a young artist!

Additional members of this cohort include Joel Garibay

MENTOR: Perri Rhoden

Perri Rhoden was born in Tacoma and raised in Seattle, WA. She began studying art at Howard University in the District of Columbia. During that time she fell in love with figurative painting and celebrating her identity as Black Woman on canvas. Since then her style has continued to evolve and she is now experimenting with various mixed mediums on canvas, wood, and plexi-glass.

Currently, she is emerging in the public art sector as a muralist, further developing her business, and is a mentor for our current Mentorship Program!

Perri has both permanent and temporary art installations in Ballard, Downtown Seattle, and the Central District. More information about these projects, and her portfolio of work, is detailed on her website www.perrirhoden.com.

Instagram handle: @perri rhoden

Performing Arts Cohort with UJ Mangune

Kimberley Le

I'm Kimberley! I am a 15-year-old self-taught animator, story boarder, and character designer in the United States. I use Flipaclip to animate, and Auto desk Sketchbook for still drawings, backgrounds, and sometimes key frames for animation! Here on my channel you'll see a lot of short test animations, animistics, and animation memes. Most of these animations are based on western cartoons such as The Owl House and Amphibia, video games like Hollow Knight and Little Nightmares, or the Warrior Cats books. If you ever want to reach out to me, my Discord handle is fishy_kinkajou | Minnow#9988.

Nickole Munoz

Nothing is Happening (excerpt)

The brick in my throat
Tries to clone and build
A wall
A roof
A barrier
To keep quiet
Because I’m better off that way right?
To swallow my tears
To bring them back to where they belong
Because they belong inside
To show no unnecessary weakness
This I cannot explain to anyone...

(to read the full poem click here: Nothing is Happening)

Nickole has worked with various mediums including paint, and sketching. For visual arts, she enjoys focusing on mental health concepts and finds it fascinating to do so in words as well. She focused on poetry and also enjoys weaving it into current events as she did during the summer program. She shed light on sexual assault, the corruption in the criminal justice system, systemic stereotypes, and familial situations in her poem. She has grown as a writer since the program and enjoyed getting the opportunity to write during the program.

Sameera Parveen (she/her) is a 13 year old high schooler, self-taught artist, and passionate reader. Her aim is to use minimal art supplies yet create the best out of it. She has her art published on a number of websites and galleries like the Paper Crane Journal, Revolution Publication, Ice Lolly Review, etc. She is the Co-founder, Outreach, and Marketing manager of Inertia teens. She gets her inspiration from the BIPOC community due to her fondness of painting human diversities and wants to empower people of color through her art. Parveen also likes to create content on her YouTube experimenting with different styles and skills.

Additional members of this cohort include Amanda Trinh.

MENTOR: UJ Mangune

UJ Mangune is a teaching and performing artist whose vision focuses on vulnerability, honesty, and sharing his experience as an American of color in this country. Recently awarded best choreography for Head Over Heels at Seattle's ArtsWest and fresh off tour as Graffiti Pete in "In The Heights", UJ originally began learning hip hop and street styles through YouTube when he moved from the greater Seattle area to a very rural high school. In the ten years since, he has directed, choreographed, and performed musicals in nationally-acclaimed theatre houses across the country, as well as choreographed and performed within the commercial realm at Amazon Prime, Google, and Macklemore.

This project was supported, in part, by an award from 4Culture.