Meet SHG 2024 Beyond The Press Artist, Roshanda Bartney (Zoe Blaq)

Self Help Graphics & Art is excited to welcome Rashonda Bartney, who goes by the artist name Zoe Blaq, as its 2024 Beyond the Press artist in residence. Zoe is an interdisciplinary artist, mental health advocate, published poet, and urban gardener from Los Angeles. She uses mixed media, installations, eco-art, storytelling, performance, video, photography, and zines for art activism and to empower marginalized communities. 

As the founder of Urban Soul Farmer, she engages and educates the broader community on topics of food justice, indigenous agriculture, and healing arts. She develops urban garden and art programs for ex-offenders, disabled adults, and LA county schools. 

Inspired by George Washington Carver, she is nurturing the soil, connecting with locals, and creating sustainable food hubs in South L.A.  Zoe is also experimenting with microclimates and a seed ball project in the majestic Mojave desert. She holds an M.A. in Clinical Psychology from Antioch University Los Angeles and a B.A. in Cinema and Television Arts from Cal State University Northridge.

Beyond the Press allows artists to delve deeper into their multidisciplinary art practice while engaging with the broader SHG communities.  Zoe will engage with SHG's Youth Committee, participate in SOY Artista this summer, and participate in SHG’s Sinks: Places We Call Home exhibition for the Getty Foundation’s Pacific Standard Time ArtXScience 2024 initiative.

Artist Residency

Beyond The Press is a Self Help Graphics & Arts artist in residence program that invites an interdisciplinary artist to create a new body of work over the course of 6 months to a year. The artist is encouraged to push and evolve their art practice while engaging with the internal and external communities of SHG. The work created during the residency will culminate with an exhibition with an accompanying catalog. Artists are selected through a nomination process and by invitation only.

Once an artist is nominated, they are contacted and invited to complete an online application and submit work samples. Learn more here.

The residency offers artists the following benefits: 

• A studio space in a collaborative and nurturing environment focused on promoting equity and access among artists of color.

• An opportunity to collaborate on projects with the broader Boyle Heights community through workshops or discussions that may inform the artist’s practice. 

• Production of a serigraph edition in our Professional Printmaking studio. 

• Opportunity to develop their teaching practice through workshops.

• A culminating exhibition with an accompanying catalog. 

Since its inception, Self Help Graphics & Art has fostered an artist in residence program that has nurtured legacy-building artists such as Linda Vallejo, Leo Limón, Michael Amescua, Yreina Cervantez, Jaime “Vyal” Reyes, and more. Since moving to our current building in Boyle Heights, SHG has provided residencies and small business incubation spaces for artists such as Sticky Rick’s, Dewey Tafoya, and Wayne Perry. Our Beyond The Press program artists include Pavel Acevedo (2020-2021) and Kalli Arte Collective (2022). The Beyond the Press artist in residence program is partly supported by the California Art Council and The Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts.

Special Thanks

Our 2024 Beyond the Press residency is made possible with support from the Mike Kelley Foundation For The Arts. Learn more here.