Joan Mitchell Center

09/21/2026

Meet Farah Billah, a painter, poet, and muralist from Sacramento, CA, now based in New Orleans. She is an artist-in-residence at the Joan Mitchell Center through December 18.

Billah writes: “My paintings depict pattern work on bodies. In my Bengali culture, bodies are adorned with fabrics and gold, but in Islam, tattoos are forbidden. I have been grappling with the idea of who owns my body if I cannot choose what and how to adorn it.”

Farah Billah is the author of two collections of poetry. Initially an oil painter, Billah has expanded her mediums to include tattooing, textiles, and embroidery, encompassing themes of personal history, culture, environment, and bodily autonomy. Learn more about her work at farahbillah.com and .

Pictured here:
1 – Farah Billah

2 – Farah Billah, Not Here, 2025. Oil on canvas, 55 x 55 inches.

3 – Farah Billah, Wedding Guest Big Hands, 2022. Oil on canvas, 36 x 24 x 1 inches

4 - Farah Billah, Adorned Self Portrait, 2023. Oil on canvas, 55 x 55 x 1.5 inches

5 – Farah Billah, Mother Moth, 2022. Oil on canvas, 36 x 24 x 1 inches

09/16/2026

This week, we welcomed the first group of Fall Artists-in-Residence to the Joan Mitchell Center! From September to December, the Center will host 13 artists in our Artists-in-Residence program.

Rachel Berwick, Killingworth, CT

Farah Billah, New Orleans, LA

Efrem Z. Boles, “Big Chief ZeeBo,” New Orleans, LA

paris cian, New Orleans, LA .cian

Celia Eberle, Ennis, TX

Brandon Felix, New Orleans, LA

Rachel Gorman, New Orleans, LA

Shana M. griffin, New Orleans, LA

Felicita Felli Maynard, New Orleans, LA

Mary Jane Parker, New Orleans, LA

Sienna Pinderhughes, New Orleans, LA @maryjaneparkerart

Edra Soto, Chicago, IL

Caitlin Ezell Waugh, New Orleans, LA

Save the date for this season's public events: Community Coffee on October 14 from 9-11am, and Evening Open Studios on December 11 from 7-9pm when you can meet the artists and see what they’ve been working on in their studios!

Photos by Josiah Gagosian

09/12/2026

with 2026 Artist-in-Residence Michael Arcega: “It’s this kind of alchemical thing that happens when you abstract a word. It carries another piece of content beyond the word itself. I think of words as objects, they form the way we see things. My interest in language is expressed in that, We can, with just one word, say a multitude of things.”

Michael Arcega (Michael Arcega) is an artist based in San Francisco and was a Summer 2026 Artist-in-Residence at the Joan Mitchell Center. This interview was filmed at the Joan Mitchell Center in July 2026. Learn more about Arcega’s work at arcega.us.

Interview: Sly Watts
Videography: Cfreedom Photography
Editing & Production: Melissa Dean
Music: Sizzr by Schwartzy (CC0 license)

All artwork shown © Michael Arcega, 2026

ArtVideo

09/08/2026

with 2026 Artist-in-Residence Michel Droge: “My work centers the ocean as a place for research and inspiration. For the past five years, I’ve been working with a group of scientists that are based internationally, studying the deep sea, specifically octopus nurseries, and bringing that information into my work, having a sensory engagement with these unseen spaces to develop work that speaks to not just a human condition, but the condition of being on this planet.”

Michel Droge (Michel Droge) is an artist based in Arrowsic, Maine, and was a Summer 2026 Artist-in-Residence at the Joan Mitchell Center. This interview was filmed at the Joan Mitchell Center in July 2026. Learn more about Droge’s work at micheldroge.com.

Interview: Sly Watts
Videography: Cfreedom Photography
Editing: Mahsa Biglow Ara
Editing & Production: Melissa Dean
Music: Night Snow by Asher Fulero (CC0 license)

All artwork shown © Michel Droge, 2026

09/06/2026

with 2026 Artist-in-Residence SÉAN: “I’m a conceptual artist working with textiles, found objects and symbols that represent the Blackness within the American condition….Right now I’m exploring protection, ideas of sanctity and archives, specifically my grandfather’s archive of magazines throughout Black history. And a lot of what I have been working on is about how objects and these symbols hold weight and memory.”

SÉAN (SÉAN) is an artist based in New Orleans and was a Summer 2026 Artist-in-Residence at the Joan Mitchell Center. This interview was filmed at the Joan Mitchell Center in July 2026. Learn more about SÉAN’s work at joanmitchellfoundation.org/sean.

Interview: Sly Watts
Videography: Cfreedom Photography
Editing: Mahsa Biglow Ara
Editing & Production: Melissa Dean
Music: On the Flip by Density & Time (CC0 license)

All artwork shown © SÉAN, 2026

09/01/2026

Join our New Orleans-based team managing the Joan Mitchell Center Residency! We are seeking an Artist-Centered Program Manager—a key role responsible for the administration, assessment, and refinement of the residency and public programming. All details here:

The Artist Centered Program Manager at the Joan Mitchell Center (JMC) is responsible for the administration, assessment and refinement of JMC residency…

08/31/2026

with 2026 Artist-in-Residence Dillon: “I am a collector, hoarder, dilly-dallyer. Through assemblage, I’m able to understand existence and how relationships transform us… I do a lot of shifting, seeing where things want to be, reconstructing and deconstructing the sculpture, it starts to show me what it wants to be.”

Dillon (Dillon.) is an artist based in New York City and was a Summer 2026 Artist-in-Residence at the Joan Mitchell Center. This interview was filmed at the Joan Mitchell Center in July 2026. Learn more about Dillon’s work at dillonstudioart.com.

Interview: Sly Watts
Videography: Cfreedom Photography
Editing: Mahsa Biglow Ara
Editing & Production: Melissa Dean
Music: Jomon Grove by The Mini Vandals (CC0 license)

All artwork shown © Dillon, 2026

ArtVideo

08/28/2026

with 2026 Artist-in-Residence Jessica Monette: “My practice spans painting, sculpture, installation work, and I’m usually thinking about how to hold on to culture through displacement. And so a lot of my work is grounded in the events of Hurricane Katrina. In my life, that’s one of the things that displaced me. I consider myself displaced still, and my family is dispersed…”

Jessica Monette (Jessica Monette) is an artist based in East Palo Alto, California, and was a Summer 2026 Artist-in-Residence at the Joan Mitchell Center. This interview was filmed at the Joan Mitchell Center in July 2026. Learn more about Monette’s work at jessicamonette.com.

Interview: Sly Watts
Videography: Cfreedom Photography
Editing: Mahsa Biglow Ara
Editing & Production: Melissa Dean
Music: Metamorphosis by Quincas Moreira (CC0 license)

All artwork shown © Jessica Monette, 2026

ArtVideo

08/21/2026

with 2026 Artist-in-Residence Fred Liang: “I’m looking at plants as a kind of a surrogate for migration. These plants are taken out of their original roots and you never know where they’re from. And yet you embrace the plant, but not the people that came from there.”

Fred H. C. Liang (Fred H.C. Liang) is an artist based in Boston, MA and was a Summer 2026 Artist-in-Residence at the Joan Mitchell Center. This interview was filmed at the Joan Mitchell Center in July 2026. Learn more about Liang’s work at hcl-studio.com.

Interview: Sly Watts
Videography: Cfreedom Photography
Editing: Mahsa Biglow Ara
Editing & Production: Melissa Dean
Music: Aletheia (Unforgetting) by Devon Church (CC0 license)

All artwork shown © Fred Liang, 2026

08/18/2026

with 2026 Artist-in-Residence Nadrea Njoku: “Two of the things that I really want to explore in my practice are fairy tales and folklores, and the realities of the interior lives of Black women. I’m interested in the silences and the gaps in Black women’s lives and lifting up that magic that we see in fairy tales.”

Nadrea Njoku (Nadrea) is an artist based in Atlanta, GA, and was a Summer 2026 Artist-in-Residence at the Joan Mitchell Center. This interview was filmed at the Joan Mitchell Center in July 2026. Learn more about Nadrea Njoku’s work at nadreanjoku.com, or subscribe to her Substack through the link in her bio: Nadrea.

Interview: Sly Watts
Videography: Cfreedom Photography
Editing: Mahsa Biglow Ara
Production & Editing: Melissa Dean
Music: Electrosamba by Quincas Moreira (CC0 license)

All artwork shown © Nadrea Njoku, 2026

ArtVideo