artist profiles
izzy berdan
Izzy Berdan was born in South Texas in 1978 to a family who believed in service and sacrifice. Familial roots in religion, community, and the land continue to play a role in their views of the world. Their Boston life began in 1996 and has been a journey through interior design, night clubs, sobriety, fashion, rugby, magazines, performing, hospitality, assault survivor, love and art. For over the last 2 decades Izzy has been working on a number of photography series that pose questions about race, society & the human condition. Today they continue to work as a creative, photographer, freelance consultant, and provocateur. www.izzyberdan.com
they/them/he/she
Serge Gay Jr.
SERGE GAY JR. is an American visual artist and creative designer in San Francisco, California. He has always been an artist. It is a talent coursing in his blood. As a child, his drawing skills were instrumental in connecting with his classmates and teachers. Art was their common language because Serge and his family were recent immigrants to the U.S. from Haiti. When working on art for himself, Serge infuses inspiration reflective of urban realities from coast to coast. Keen to the racial and economic challenges of our time, influenced by the culture of his homeland, and melded with his life experiences, his voice and the motivation in his work is crisp and clear. His aesthetic incorporates the grit of New York, the beauty of Miami, the wealth of Detroit, and the freedom of San Francisco. All of these places, in their own way, permeate the evolution of his work.
Additionally, above and beyond producing murals and other visual art that amplify LGBTQIA+ voices, Serge has taken action on behalf of a broader sense of community, having served on the board for the Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza and separately having produced projects with local community benefit districts, the California Health and Human Services Agency, and the United States Consulate working in partnership with the State Department of Cultural Affairs, plus many other organizations. www.sergegayjr.com
he/him
Theodoor Grimes
Theodoor Gabriella Grimes (They/He) is a Black non-binary artist known for his vibrant illustrations that center the queer experience under the moniker ggggrimes. Based in New York City, Theodoor is entirely self taught. ggggrimes’ work is known not only for its dedication to uplifting queer people, but also for its brilliantly colorful, lush, and peaceful depictions of queer life.
Theodoor often describes his work as a portrayal of queer people of color living happy, beautiful, and sexy lives: highlighting joyous and free worlds that every queer deserves. Theodoor’s illustrations are full of incredible detail and texture: tattoos, body hair, surgery scars, blushes, and seemingly endless patterns. Inspired by graphic novels and manga, his portfolio boasts a large amount of comics with diverse characters and subject matter. www.ggggrimes.com
they/he
Victor Jeffreys
Hi! My name is Victor G. Jeffreys II. I live in New York City and I paint and draw obsessively. I did some back of the envelope math recently and realized I've taken more than two million photos since 2004. I've shot countless hours of film. I've edited a decent fraction of those hours. I collage, make sculptural objects — some that are functional, some that are not — and host listening/dinner/political-fundraising/birthday/Easter parties, among other types of events. I'm a classically trained bassist. I have studied West African dance for more than a decade. In college, in my home state of North Carolina, in the early 2000s, I thought I was going to be a doctor. But life went a different direction. I worked on Capitol Hill in Washington and then for the Alvin Ailey dance school. I worked out of a Jane St. loft for a biotech hedge fund. I helped launch a start up that leveraged fine art as collateral for loans. My title at Gawker, when it was still around and thriving, was Polymath. I survived the Univision years. I didn't survive the private equity years. I'm not exactly sure what the future holds, but all things considered, I'm optimistic. www.victorjeffreys.com
he/him
LaNia Sproles
LaNia Sproles (American, b. 1995) is a Black femme queer artist originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They received a BFA from Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design in 2017. Now based in Chicago, their work spans several disciplines including: printmaking, drawing, and collage. Sproles works is often inspired by artists and writers such as Octavia Butler, Laura Callaghan, and Brontez Purnell. In 2020, they completed their year as a 2019 Mary L. Nohl Fellow, continued as a teaching artist-in-residence at the Lynden Sculpture Garden, and guest curated an exhibition hosted by NADA art fair with The Green Gallery. Sproles has exhibited several artworks with Elijah Wheat Showroom hosted by David Zwirner’s online exhibition space, Platform, and with Goldfinch Gallery and FLXST Contemporary in Chicago. interview
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Derrick Woods-Morrow
Born and raised in Brown Summit, North Carolina, I develop work that digs into the complexities of Black queer life in the Global South—its joys, its contradictions, and its unapologetic beauty. I create spaces—ethnographic, photographic, physical, digital—that bring the fullness of our bodies and our pleasure into view. Spaces where sensation, memory, and history collide. I lean into abstraction because reality can be a trap, a lie told too often. By using materials that dredge up histories coded into the fibers of our lives, I ask viewers to go beyond what they see and into what they feel. These gestures question the places where those histories happened and the performances—intimate, unseen—that shaped them. They demand we assign value to what’s hidden, to what we can’t fully know but still carry with us.
My work spirals out from encounters that are tender, charged, and deeply human. These moments aren’t just creative collaborations—they’re acts of kinship. The people I work with become family—my queer kin. Together, we leave behind more than just artifacts. We leave home movies, ruins, portals, heirlooms. We tell stories no one wrote down, and we build the worlds we want to live in.
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