We are excited to introduce the Cycle 17 of TAC Artist in Residence: Mateo Gutiérrez, Cici Osias, Margaret Roleke, Seyoung Hong, Diana Eusebio, Alessandro Levato, Vero Bello, and Vic Liu.
The next nine months of the AIR program will be an exciting journey of artistic development for our AIR Cycle 17 cohort. The residents will delve into a comprehensive curriculum of technical classes, textile history and conservation, and professional development, which includes weekly meetings, critiques, workshops, and field trips, and engage with a wide network of professionals working within the textile arts field.
Learn more about the residents below and stay tuned to see their journey during the residency!
Mateo Gutiérrez is a contemporary artist who makes hand-embroidered artworks that bring into question the underlying culture of violence endemic to American life both personally, politically and historically. Mateo moved to the U.S. at the age of sixteen, and has struggled with his conflicted relationship to the U.S. ever since. He presents both a sociopolitical and a deeply personal reflection on what it means to be American. He challenges the viewer with both a haunting and empathetic view of the traumatic effects of the so-called "American way of life" and also what it means to be an outsider as both foreign born and Latino. He cites his complex experience with the United States as central to his understanding of American cultural practices that are defined by racial and socioeconomic hierarchies engendering violence and xenophobia. Mateo has exhibited nationally in galleries in Los Angeles, New York and across Texas, including multiple museum exhibitions and prestigious art residencies. Mateo was a featured artists in the 2024-2025 Texas Biennial, the longest running state biennial in the US. Mateo has been featured in New American Painters, Hyperallergic, the Austin American Statesman, Glasstire and other notable art journals. Mateo has a BA in philosophy from the University of California at Berkeley and his MFA in studio painting from the University of Texas at Austin. He divides his time between Brooklyn NY and Austin TX.
Cici Osias (b. Baltimore, MD) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work draws influence from African American, Congolese, Haitian, and Nigerian motifs in order to make meaning of her identity and hold her people close. Within her textiles, Cici recognizes the role of cloth as a vessel for storytelling and traces the vestiges of shared origin and collective memory across the Black diaspora.
Originally from Long Island, New York, Margaret Roleke lives and works in Brooklyn and Connecticut. Roleke earned her M.F.A. from Long Island University, C.W. Post Brookville, NY and a B.A. from Marymount Manhattan College. She also studied at the Art Students League, NY and School of Visual Arts, NY. Her work appears nationally in galleries and museums. Roleke has had recent solo exhibits at Pen+Brush Gallery New York, NY, and Five Points Art Gallery, Torrington, CT. Her work has been included in shows at The Aldrich, Katonah Museum of Art, and WhiteBox New York, NY. Roleke received an Artist Respond Grant from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts in 2024. An outdoor sculpture of Roleke’s was installed in Jackie Robinson Park in Harlem in April 2025. Past residencies include Vermont Studio Center , Teton ArtLab, ArtPort KIngston and 4 Heads Portal at Governors Island, NYC.
Seyoung Hong is a visual artist from Washington DC. A recent BFA grad from Rhode Island School of Design’s textile program with a concentration in environmental studies, her work focuses on materiality and the conveying of information through art.
Diana Eusebio is a Peruvian-Dominican multidisciplinary artist based in Miami. Her artistic practice is centered on color and its cultural significance. She researches natural dyed textiles from Indigenous Latin American and Afro-Caribbean traditions, recognizing their connection to nature and their role as carriers of ancestral wisdom. Eusebio's fusion of ancestral and modern techniques, including dyeing and photography, contributes to contemporary cultural preservation and celebrates the rich heritage and Pre-Columbian knowledge embedded within these communities. Her work is a powerful testament to the enduring cultural tapestry of these regions.
Eusebio holds a BFA in Fiber from the Maryland Institute College of Art. She has presented her work at the MoMa, Hall of Nations, Gregg Museum of Art and Design, and Rubell Museum. Studio residencies include Textile Art Center, NY, NY; Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Aspen, CO; Oolite Arts, Miami; AIRIE Fellowship, Everglades National Park; INDEX MECA Art Fair, Dominican Republic; Deering Estate Studio Residency, Miami. Notable awards include the Obama administration’s U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts–the highest national honor for a young artist-and the National YoungArts Jorge M. Perez Award for $25,000.
Alessandro Levato is a transgender interdisciplinary artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Their work explores their queer trans body through tactile, visual, and auditory forms, often incorporating materials like monotype paintings, audio and video documentation, cyanotypes, quilts and parachutes. Growing up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, they witnessed rigid gender binaries within the Amish community, and now use large-scale, process-driven and material-influenced work to document real and phantom embodiment. They have received the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant (2019) and The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, Robert Blackburn Printmaking Award (2022). Their work has been shown in group shows at Equity Gallery (2022) and Trotter & Sholer Gallery (2023). Alessandro attended Mudhouse Residency (2024) and The Penland School of Craft Winter Residency for printmaking (2025). They are currently accepted to Cycle 17 of Textile Arts Center's AIR program (2025-2026).
Vero was born in Caracas, Venezuela, and grew up in Mexico City followed by South Florida. She earned a BFA in Textile Design from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 2022, where she was awarded a RISD Museum scholarship to attend a travel course in Oaxaca, immersing herself in local material cultures. She also received the Barbara L. Kuhlman scholarship in support of her thesis project, Standing on Porous Rock, an exploration of the climate crisis in relation to tourist culture in Miami.
During her time at RISD, Vero collaborated with artist Corina Dorrego to design an independent study with Professor Sean Nesselrode-Moncada, examining the visual systems through which the Caribbean has been imaged for tourist consumption. Together, they also co-curated Of Soiled Bodies, a student exhibition showcasing artists exploring themes of displacement and uprootedness.
After graduating, Vero taught off-loom weaving and to elementary school students before working as a home textile designer at Anthropologie in Philadelphia, where she deepened her knowledge of textile manufacturing. After a year, she chose to pivot, seeking work that would allow her to sustain a personal art practice.
She is currently a member of the Brooklyn Lace Guild and recently exhibited work at MAPSpace in the group show The Future Belongs to the Loving.
vic liu writes, rants, schemes, paints sometimes, cooks often, embroiders, knits, and is learning cloisonné enamel (and blacksmithing and woodcrafting). They are currently working on a novel where losers lose but also love.
She lives in Brooklyn, NY with a very large dog and sometimes a small cat. They have all tried anxiety medication.
Their books include Bang! Masturbation for All Abilities and Genders 2nd edition (Microcosm Publishing, 2023) and The Warehouse: A Visual Primer on Mass Incarceration (PM Press, 2024).