Who We Are

Our Purpose

An evolving, Black-led nonprofit organization that unapologetically celebrates Blackness, intersectionality, and exists through Black feminist practices, Threewalls fosters contemporary art practices that respond to lived experiences, encouraging connections beyond art.

Caribbean Carnival Celebration, 2023 – Photo By: Flikk Thornton

Women dancing at event

Our Vision

Art connecting segregated communities, people, and experiences together.

Our Values

Celebrating Differences

We believe that it is our responsibility to reflect not only Chicago’s racial, ethnic and cultural diversity but our society at large. In this vein, we believe that racial and ethnic inclusivity in addition to cultural equity is germane to our work.

Risk

We are committed to providing an environment that embraces risk, with the understanding that this is where the most fruitful and successful art and relationships are born.

Respect for Process

We believe that supporting process over time is integral to artistic and creative practices as well as relationship-building.

Collaboration

We value the practice of collaboration with our nonprofit peers, artists, community leaders, and others who are inspired to use art as a catalyst for change. We believe that without true collaboration, real change through the arts cannot happen.

Our History

2003

Inception

Threewalls was founded in 2003 to provide support and visibility for the visual arts community in Chicago. The founders wanted to encourage a greater awareness of Chicago’s art scene by inviting emerging professional artists to share in the city’s rich histories, resources, and creative communities.

2016

Conscious Transitions

Threewalls transitioned from a bricks-and-mortar gallery to an itinerant model in early 2016 in response to contemporary discourse about the intersections of art, social justice, and community. We continue to support artists and collaborative projects, especially those that are best presented outside of traditional art spaces, thereby expanding the discourse around contemporary art presentation and exhibition, and breaking down walls to contemporary art that are firmly in place in so many communities.

2024

Present Day

Threewalls, an evolving Blk-space, fosters contemporary art practices that respond to lived experiences, encouraging connections beyond art. As an arts non-profit in Chicago, we practice values that support our daily operations, guide our decisions, and ultimately tell our community who we are and how we move in the world. Threewalls provides support to artists, produces innovative programming, and creates a space for artists and creatives to thrive. The work of Threewalls rests firmly within a culture of care. A culture of intentionality, a culture of space, a culture of rootedness that centers humanity through the lens of art and relationship-building.

The Four Prongs of Our Work

1

Value Of Art | Artmaking | Artist | Creative Process

We all know that the commodification of contemporary art, whether visual, performing or any other form, distorts its deeper value. This model challenges the commodity value placed on art and expands its value beyond the monetary. Additionally, this model centers artists, processes and people with the intent of demonstrating the impact of art on our daily lives and expanding the discourse on our lives, which are socially, politically and culturally nuanced.

2

Racial Inclusivity

Given that Chicago is comprised of 2/3 people of color, we are dedicated to the organization and its work reflecting a diverse Chicago, which means supporting more artists of color, recruiting staff and board members of color, and providing leadership opportunities, as well as providing creative, critical and vendor opportunities. We are also committed to being racially and ethnically inclusive with respect to our audience. This is an extremely important aspect of the model of working with artists and communities where they live and work.

3

Community Accessibility

We want to present contemporary art in such a way that makes it accessible intellectually and physically in everyday life. Of the many ways to accomplish this, there are two ways that we currently focus on:

  • Being mobile and taking it to neighborhoods, community spaces, and places of work that make the engagement with art more accessible.
  • Including the audience in the process from the very beginning of the research phase.

4

Space

We want to conceptually, physically and philosophically expand the discourse around contemporary art presentation and exhibition—from three walls to the fourth wall to breaking down the walls. This is where itinerancy comes into play as our presentation model.

Our Team

SHANITA BIGELOW, PH.D.

2024-25 Program Fellow

(she/her/hers)

Shanita Bigelow, Ph.D.  is a poet, educator, and researcher who is interested in the confluence of art, inquiry, and creative and educative processes that seek to enrich community. Shanita believes in the capacity of the arts to engender care, reflection, risk, and cooperation. Her work as a poet centers home as physical spaces, as feeling(s), and as the space to connect, build relationships. Memory, history, nature, and the fraught and joyful aspects of the human condition find their way into her writing. In all aspects of her work, she draws from living, from lessons and stories shared through generations.

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STEPHANY M. FIGUEROA NUNEZ

Communications Associate

(she/her/hers)

Stephany is a Graphic Design Freelancer experienced in branding, logo, print, web, and illustration. She continues to expand her skill set through learning Motion Design. She majored in Spanish and Graphic Design at Andrews University. Stephany began designing deliverables for Threewalls in 2023, such as social media posts, program design, and more.

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Jeffreen Hays

JEFFREEN M. HAYES, PH.D.

Executive Director

(she/her/hers)

Jeffreen M. Hayes, Ph.D., an art historian and curator, merges administrative, curatorial and academic practices into her cultural practice of supporting artists and community development. As an advocate for racial inclusion, equity and access, Jeffreen has developed a curatorial and leadership approach that invites community participation, particularly those in historically excluded communities. Her curatorial projects include

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Sharbreon Plummer, Ph.D.

Interim Artistic Director

(she/her/hers)

Sharbreon Plummer, Ph.D. is a researcher and arts practitioner with a heart for expanding how artistic practice is defined, supported, and framed through theory. Her upbringing in southern Louisiana informs her interest and investment in how culture and ancestral memory act as influencers of identity and contemporary artistic production, especially within textile-based practices.

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Lynna

Lynna Tyler, MBA, MBE

Bookkeeper

(she/her/hers)

Lynna Tyler is President and CEO of Tyler Bookkeeping and Management Services Inc., a consulting firm that provides accounting, bookkeeping, HR and CFO services to a variety of businesses and not for profit organizations.

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Renata

Renata Cassiano Alvarez

Spanish Interpreter and Translator, Collaborator

(she/her/hers)

Renata Cassiano Alvarez is a Mexican-Italian artist and interpreter born in Mexico City and currently the Visiting Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Arkansas School of Art. Cassiano Alvarez’s artistic practice is based on a constant search for developing an intimate collaborative relationship with material and material language.

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Alice

Alice Berry

Counselor, Collaborator

(she/her/hers)

Alice Berry, an SAIC alumna (1980), has completed her Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology (Counseling Practice) (2014) at Roosevelt University, has LPC licensure, and is currently engaging in this relational art piece as a psychotherapeutic practice. She has a 30-year background in the arts as a fashion, textile and installation designer, entrepreneur and visual artist.

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Lee

Lee Ann Norman

Managing Editor, Collaborator

(she/her/hers)

Lee Ann Norman is a cultural worker and writer whose work highlights her interest in cultivating spaces that allow people to learn about themselves and each other through the arts. She currently services as Director, Leadership and Learning Programs for the League of American Orchestras where she manages the League’s $6.6 million signature re-granting programs.

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Daviree

Daviree Velazquez Phillip

Organizational Health Consultant, Collaborator

(she/her/hers)

Daviree Velazquez Phillip serves as the Lead Consultant with together+through, a counseling and consulting organization dedicated to centering those at the margins by providing services that are anti-oppressive, collaborative + culturally responsive.

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Laticia

Laticia Thompson, Ph.D.

Business Psychologist Consultant, Collaborator

(she/her/hers)

Dr. Laticia (Tish) Thompson, PhD is the Founder and Chief Business Psychologist of Legacy Blueprint, LLC, a management consulting firm that teaches people how to play respectfully and productively with each other in the workplace sandbox.

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Board of
Directors

Executive Committee

Zoë Charlton, Vice-President

Artist & Professor of Art

George Mason University

Chiblie Coleman, President

Sr. Manager Treasury Cash Analytics

Blue Cross Blue Shield

Miko McGinty, Secretary

Founder & Designer

McGinty, Inc.

Kirsten Pai Buick, PH.D., Treasurer

Professor of Art History and Associate Dean of Equity & Excellence

University of New Mexico

Members

Jennifer Ling Datchuk,

Artist & Assistant Professor of Art

Arizona State University

Douglas Domenick,

Director of Office Services/Facilities Management

Chapman and Cutler LLP

Oren Lund

Attorney

David Robinson,

Vice-President

ParkerGale

Emeritus

Juliette Bethea,

Retired, Financial Management

Colin D. Lord,

Founder

New Ivy Consultants

Devin Mathews,

Partner

ParkerGale

Gary Metzner,

Senior Vice President: Head of Office

Sotheby’s

Working at Threewalls

Learn about opportunities to work at Threewalls.

Stay Informed

Threewalls is always finding new ways to share our artist’s unique voices through exhibits, talks, and gatherings. We would like you to be the first to know about these opportunities.