Sherese Francis said she wants “students to feel inspired to grow their own creativity.” Alana Ladson said she hopes students “find a sense of hope and peace within my work.” 

Both artists’ work is on display in the Sue and Eugene Mercy Jr. Gallery at the Richmond Art Center through March 22 in a show titled “Presence in the Time of ...”  

Ms. Ladson is a painter, graphic designer, and illustrator who was chosen to be a 2022 We Need Diverse Books mentee in illustration. That organization says it strives “to create a world where every reader can find themselves in the pages of a book.” That is important to Ms. Ladson, who said it was an honor to be chosen. 

 “It is a competitive and prestigious program, and they have a cause that I believe in,” she said. “Children's books can truly touch the lives of children and families. Seeing yourself (i.e., someone that looks like you or has similar characteristics or a personality like yours) portrayed positively in a book, even just once, can change your perspective for the better.” 

She said art has been a part of her life since she was a child.

“I was creating stick figures at around 2 years old,” she said. “At the time, seeing black and brown folks in a positive light in the pages of books, on TV, or in magazines was very limited. I wanted to be a force for change. Because of that, I've been making the art I had wanted to see back then, as well as using my art as a form of self-expression.” 

Ms. Francis’s artist bio says she finds “expression through poetry, interdisciplinary arts (collage, book and paper arts, sound and performance art, text art), workshop facilitation, editing, and literary curation.” 

“I tend to work with materials that you can find in your everyday life,” said Ms. Francis, who used masks from the COVID-19 pandemic to make a quilt piece. “Taking things in your everyday life and using them to refashion in new ways and new meanings.” It’s an approach that she hopes will inspire students.  

Ms. Francis’s work “is rooted in my theorizing on the possibilities of text in many forms. I began as a poet, but recently I’ve been exploring text, poetry, and language in different mediums. What is text beyond a two-dimensional page? What are words and language beyond what we are conditioned to think of them?” 

Both artists are scheduled to give an artists’ talk in the gallery on Friday, March 22, at 7 p.m. and to return to campus in April as part of the Adolf and Virginia Dehn Visiting Artist Program.