The Buffalo AKG announced that for the second year, the museum’s Public Art Initiative will sponsor six local artists during the East Side Garden Walk, on July 19 and 20, 2025, for plein-air artmaking. These six Western New York artists, including XIII, Madeline Bartley, Bianca L. McGraw, Joel Mulindwa, Jennifer Ryan, and Emeka Wajed, will engage in the production of original works during their two-day residencies. The results will range from sketches and preliminary work for nascent or ongoing projects to completed original artworks.

The artists this year follow in the footsteps of the inaugural East Side Garden Walk residencies in 2024 that featured Buffalo-based artists Emma Brittian, Naija Boles, Stephen Forman Jr. (aka Paulie), Bree Gilliam, Shanel Kerekes, and Faith Quinn.

The East Side Garden Walk, which began in 2018, encourages visitors and neighbors to walk, drive, or bike Buffalo’s East Side, learning about the resilience and creativity of this community. Visitors meet its gracious gardeners and experience its historic neighborhoods and wide-ranging architecture. The various featured gardens are an eclectic mix of private homes, community gardens, and even some urban farms, with participating gardeners ranging from schoolchildren helping in outdoor classroom gardens to senior citizens and everyone in between.

Sponsored artists can be found at the following locations:

·       821 Humboldt Parkway, Buffalo NY 14208 (XIII & Joel Mulindwa)

·       65-85 Bogardus Street, Buffalo NY 14206 (Bianca L. McGraw & Emeka Wajed)

·       1955 Genesee Street, Buffalo NY 14211 (Jennifer Ryan & Madeline Bartley)

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About the Artists

XIII

XIII is a multidisciplinary visual artist and freelance creator based in Buffalo who studied visual arts at The Buffalo Academy for Visual and Performing Arts and animation and illustration at Daemen University. Her work is inspired by relationships between the human experience, futurism, spirituality, and tradition. Working in both traditional and digital media, XIII incorporates vibrant colors and spiritual elements to depict ideas through a mystical and/or spiritual lens. Her work has been exhibited at The Good Stuff (formerly Pine Apple Company), Hallwalls, and Buffalo Big Print in Buffalo. She completed a mural of the historic Cataract House for the Niagara Falls National Heritage Area, as well as another mural in Irving, NY. XIII’s works have been featured in numerous galleries and art spaces around Western New York, including the Burchfield Penney Art Center, C. Stuart and Jane H. Hunt Gallery, the Buffalo History Museum, and Princessa’s Studio and Art Gallery.

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Madeline Bartley

Madeline Bartley was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and attended Murray State University, where she received her BFA in printmaking and drawing. She earned her MFA in studio arts from Syracuse University’s College of Visual Performing Arts in 2016. A recipient of the Quilting by the Lake Scholarship in Syracuse, NY, and the Turner Residency in Los Angeles, she is featured in Syracuse Women Magazine and Boxcar Press Blog: The Inquisitive Printer. She has exhibited her work in solo and group shows including exhibitions at the Hand Held Gallery (Melbourne, Australia), Walnut Ink Projects (Michigan City, IN), The Rogue Space (New York, NY), and the Museum of Latin American Art (Long Beach, CA). Currently she lives in Buffalo, New York. Her studio is in the TriMain Building, 2495 Main Street, in Buffalo, where she is a resident artist of Buffalo Arts Studio. She has been a member of this community since February 2021.

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Bianca L. McGraw

Bianca L. McGraw is a multimedia installation and performance artist, poet, educator, higher-education advocate, community development and engagement facilitator, and diversity presenter. McGraw uses art, poetry, performance, and space as a vehicle for discussion about identity, diversity, and perspectives while exploring personal, societal, and communal experiences.

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Joel Mulindwa

Joel Mulindwa is an interdisciplinary artist whose work focuses on creating drawings that earnestly depict the essence of the modern-day worker within the context of their surroundings. Labor is a subject of great interest to Joel because he finds that the act of working for a common or individual good to be an intriguing avenue to interact with realities that shape our world. His drawing utilizes traditional impressionist techniques to portray figures in restful and busy scenarios.

Born in the Democratic Republic of Congo and raised in Uganda, Joel is currently based in Lockport, NY. Joel holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and minors in Political Science and Studio Art from Houghton University. He is currently pursuing a MFA at the University at Buffalo, where he continues to develop his practice and expand his artistic voice.  His works have been featured in both group and solo shows around Western New York, with his first solo show “chaos” being his most notable, held at the Wesley Chapel gallery at Houghton University.       

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Jennifer Ryan

Jennifer Ryan frequently experiments in mediums ranging from drawing to sculptural painting and pottery; her current explorations include working with quill pens. Her work often considers in abstract the human body and mind as well as other natural organisms, and the idea that all systems are created and intertwined by delicate but resilient parts.

Ryan is inspired by the physical and psychological facets of body and nature. Her repetitive movement work is based on aspects of growth and healing. Her works all begin as random clusters of marks and grow larger, taking on lives of their own. Eventually each “species” of line demands its place and directs the next sequence, and the artist moves on . . . and on . . . and on . . .

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Emeka Wajed

Emeka Wajed is a third-generation artist. Creativity has always been a part of his life. Wajed’s preferred medium is oil paint, however, he enjoys exploring and experimenting with other mediums. His current practice includes murals, digital design, and altered and hand-sewn clothing for his fashion line Made by Mek. Wajed has assisted on numerous AKG mural projects and is a former resident at the Hunt Gallery in Buffalo.

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About the Buffalo AKG Art Museum

Founded in 1862, the Buffalo AKG Art Museum is the sixth-oldest public art institution in the United States. For more than 160 years, the Buffalo AKG has collected, conserved, and exhibited the art of its time, often working directly with living artists. This tradition has given rise to one of the world’s most extraordinary collections of modern and contemporary art.

In June 2023, following the completion of the most significant campus development and expansion project in its history, the Buffalo AKG opened anew to the public. The project was funded by a $230 million capital campaign, the largest such campaign for a cultural institution in the history of Western New York, including $195 million raised for construction and $35 million in additional operating endowment funds.

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