STAFF
Listed alphabetically by first name
Andy Fry
Co-founder & Creative Director
Andy is an artist, designer and musician. He specializes in collaborative design, frequently synthesizing diverse opinions from numerous stakeholders into singular, coherent outcomes. In addition to his work as creative director at Big Car, he has maintained his own design practice for over 15 years. He has a BFA in painting and a BA in philosophy from Indiana University, Bloomington.
Eduardo S. Luna
Staff Artist
Born in Mexico, raised in the Midwest, Eduardo is passionate about bringing the two cultures together. He is a founding member of NOPAL Cultural Center, a Latino-American arts organization. He also manages events and appearances of his friend El Camaron Electronico, a luchador whose mission is to bring culture to the community.
Jason Gray
Lead Builder, Staff Artist
Gray spent the Sunday mornings of his childhood sitting in church, pretending to pay attention, but more likely thinking about Godzilla than God. The ritual and symbolism still sunk in. His most recent body of work — a collection of monster reliquaries — explores the relationship between a vessel’s appearance and the sacred object it houses. Gray received his BFA in Furniture Design at Herron School of Art in 2011 and his MFA at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2014. He currently lives and works in Indianapolis.
Jim Walker
Co-founder & Executive Director
Jim Walker is a social practice artist, placemaker, community builder, designer, teacher, and writer who believes everyone deserves open access to the joys of art, creativity, and great public places. Jim — who worked previously as a journalist (writer, photographer, editor, and designer) — is a student of cities and enjoys walking, biking, travel, and baseball. He lives with his family in the Garfield Park neighborhood.
Julie Xiao
Public Art & Programs Manager
Julie Xiao is an Indianapolis based artist who creates narrative works that speak about contemporary subject matters depicted in a fantastical manner. She has been experimenting with scale and different aesthetic techniques to depict mythological worlds that focus on exploring multicultural identity and mythologies. Much of her aesthetic techniques are inspired by traditional Chinese paintings, Japanese prints, as well as contemporary media such as films and comics. Xiao is a storyteller as much as she is an artist, she blends her digital media skills with her traditional art experiences to create well balanced compositions that convey various narratives. She strives to create engaging works that tell a story and encourages the viewers to connect and explore more about the artwork.
Delia Robertson
Director of Operations
In 2010, Delia co-founded a for-profit business and successfully operated it while continuing to pursue her stage-managing career. In 2017, Delia departed her business in the stage management world for an opportunity in non-profit management–working for the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site as the special events and marketing manager. Delia joined the Phoenix Theater Co in January 2019 and was promoted to managing director in September of 2020. While at Phoenix, Robertson developed and spear-headed the launch of Phoenix’s first-ever outdoor venue, The Park at the Phoenix, which opened in May 2021 and has hosted over 15 organizations to date.
Robertson has played the viola for almost 30 years, enjoys crocheting blankets for friends, and loves walking her black lab, Ringo, around her Fountain Square neighborhood.
Max Walker
Assistant Builder
Max Walker is an aspiring artist, writer and musician currently working on the building team at the Tube Factory. You can usually find him around the Tube campus cleaning or maintaining something during the workday and then at various music venues or simply walking around the south side once the workday has come to an end. He believes that a better world is possible and hopes to inspire good in the world with his work in the future.
Oreo Jones
Staff Artist/WQRT Station Manager
Oreo Jones (Sean Smith) is that pair of Air Jordans too scuffed up to wear in public, but you do it anyway because they still feel right. Hailing from Warsaw, Indiana, Jones has made Indianapolis his creative mecca. A multi-talented artist who delves into sound, music, and visual experimentation, Jones shares and expand the minds of people in surrounding neighborhoods, while helping the city grow.
Shauta Marsh
Co-founder & Director of Programs & Exhibitions
A social practice artist, curator, writer, author and researcher, Marsh’s work centers around artist-run culture, race and urban renewal through the lens of the arts, censorship in red states, popular culture’s influence on the pursuit of utopia, urban/rural relationships and artists’ social roles. She writes and produces the Social Alchemy radio programs on 99.1 WQRT LP-Indianapolis, creates public art projects and events via Big Car’s placemaking program, Spark and leads the APLR program. Working with artists who explore identity to bring about social change, she specializes in rapid response exhibitions. She has curated over 50 exhibits with artists including Carlos Rolón, Saya Woolfalk, LaToya Ruby Frazier, etc.
Landon Caldwell
Space & Sound Manager
Landon Caldwell is a composer and multi-disciplinary artist in Indianapolis whose work examines environment, family, & class through the language of intuition and other hidden layers of reality. Through sound, words, color and other materials, his work creates environments that redirect attention to the present and open new realities through the minutiae of the everyday.Since 2016 he has co-operated Medium Sound, producing a number of the label’s releases. From 2017 to 2020 he was a co-owner/operator of A-Space, a community-focused audio workspace. He has toured in the United States, Canada, and Europe and is regularly engaged with artists and musicians across the Midwest and beyond.His collaborative work expands into multi-disciplinary fields, working with film, visual arts, sculpture, poetry, dance, and more.
ARTIST RESIDENTS
More bios to come. Learn about the program here.
Listed alphabetically by first name
Bashiri Asad
APLR Artist
Inspired by artists like Donny Hathaway, Stevie Wonder, Sam Cooke, and Otis Redding, “the Everyday Soul Singer” Bashiri Asad has come to define his sound as “Indy-Soul.” Asad honed his style through classical vocal training as well as singing in shoo-wop style groups. These experiences, coupled with his own strength and passion, have united to manifest his own version of true indie soul.
Kaila Austin
APLR Artist
Kaila Austin is a visual artist and public historian from Indianapolis. Since 2019, she has run her own historic consulting organization at the intersection of Creative Placemaking and Heritage Preservation. In her paintings, she works primarily in figures, working to place everyday people into enlightened positions. She was one of the muralists for the Murals for Racial Justice Program through the Arts Council of Indianapolis and is working to create several more murals around the midwest based on creating spatial justice for Black people within the urban cityscape. Her work has been featured in Pattern Magazine, Black Art in America, Forbes Magazine and the NY Times.
Carrington Clinton
APLR Artist
Carrington “Clint Breeze” Clinton is a drummer, music producer, bandleader, and composer. In 2014, Clinton released his first project under the name Clint Breeze, titled Evolve. At that time, Clinton started to make noise around the city as a producer and a drummer, both releasing projects and playing for several artists in the city (Rob Dixon, Jared Thompson and Premium Blend, Tucker Brothers Group, Cliff Ratcliff, etc.). To date, Clint has released four projects and has played with several artists in and around Indianapolis.
Dr. Jarrod Nicholas Dortch
APLR Artist
Dr. Jarrod Nicholas Dortch is a community artist. The work Dortch creates is what one could do themselves, and this is the art of it. Guiding others and motivating them to create is what makes Dortch’s art so personal and so public. His medium is what the world provides, and from it, he provides prompts for discourse. Dortch is a small part of a movement of Black artists and curators who are hosting exhibits and creating work that shines a light on Black culture with an emphasis on placemaking and community. His most recent project “Snuggy Bear Presents…” was created as another pathway to further disrupt the status quo of contemporary and fine art. With roots in art, community, and education, Dortch is leveraging these disciplines to help promote personal and communal growth.
Dailyn Eads
APLR Artist
Creating art has always been a form of self expression for Dai. She uses a menagerie of different textures and mediums, but her primary medium is acrylic. Dai doesn’t minimize the tools that she uses in her process. Creating has been healing for her inner child and allowing herself to just be while not overthinking. Dai values creating through trusting the process by allowing every color choice, brush stroke and texture to speak for itself. Dai has reflected a lot on her art and her central message. Every time she paints it’s a reflection of her self love journey, and is about her choosing herself over and over again. She utilizes art as a coping skill to navigate the world around her. She’s very intentional about the projects, collaborations and partnerships she takes on. Dai has partnered with different local nonprofit organizations to promote community, equitability, upliftment and support through art.
Jane Sun Kim
APLR Artist
Behind Jane Sun Kim’s film photography, sculpture, and layered silk screen printing lie the raw glimmers in all of the in-between, awkward, and private moments. Her work knows no boundaries in medium or material, as Kim reaches her points of creation through the use of found and traditionally discarded materials in her sculptures to reply to the growing sustainability issues. The beauty of her craft is that it serves as a balancing agent. Creating out of a necessity to organize her obsessions and release them, her work is rooted in repetitive thought patterns resulting from OCD, anxiety, and depression. Kim uses this channel to confront perceptions and stigmas on mental health, exploring nostalgia and emotional intimacy.
Justin Cooper
APLR Artist
Justin Cooper is primarily a self-taught, Indianapolis-based visual artist. Over 20 years of independently developing his artistic voice as well as relationships formed with fellow artists he connected with through artist communities such as the Murphy Art Center, Wheeler arts Community and Big Car Collaborative’s artist in residency program have been central to his evolution as an artist. Cooper employs a variety of mediums to his pieces such as graphite illustration, oil painting, digital design, pyrography, and gilding. His main inspirations stem from observations of nature, art history and architecture. Cooper is fascinated by the geometric formations, patterns, and the underlying structural arrangements found within nature.
Rob Funkhouser
APLR Artist
As a composer, performer, and instrument maker, Funkhouser channels the wonders of the world through his inquisitive and revelatory works. Originally from Richmond, Indiana, Funkhouser is obsessed with the concept of timelessness within his musical practices. His work is a unique extension of classical and electronic music. Exploring the world of recursion, manipulation, and translation, he draws inspiration from nature, design, and systems of thought. He also builds instruments as a creative act itself. Formally trained on percussion with both a Bachelors and Masters degree in Composition, he makes music not only for himself, but also approaches it on a macro level by thinking about the spaces, audiences, and community he’s situated in and attracted to.
Ben Rose
APLR Artist
As a multi-hyphenate artist, Rose has spent time cultivating his skills in Theatre, Photography, Filmmaking, and Community Building. In 2016 he was one of 10 actors in Indianapolis awarded the Indy Theatre Professional MVP award and grant by the Indianapolis Foundation. His subsequent screenplay, Lion Of Judah, was named an Official Selection in the 2017 Los Angeles International Screenplay Awards. He recently completed the script for a tv pilot, Tracy Love and launched the Black-n-Brown Festival celebrating Black and Latino Solidarity in 2021. With support from the Arts Council he also completing a photo series spotlighting Black and Latino Solidarity as well. During the pandemic he directed two successful plays Hooded, and Kill Move Paradise as well as 3 live streamed community concerts. Currently with a grant from 16Tech he is in production on a documentary of Haughville USA in Indianapolis, where he has been doing community work for the past 3 years. In 2022 he was awarded the Creative Renewal Grant from the Arts Council of Indianapolis.
Tiffany Black
APLR Artist
Tiffany Black’s approach to art-making revolves around creating spaces. She creates murals and other large-scale works with strong consideration of the physical impact on the viewer, and surrounding community. Black’s approach considers the history of a place, how the space is used, and those who inhabit or pass through it. Through her public artworks, she incorporates concepts of inner transformation, natural cycles, and connectivity. As a Community Artist, she moves through her studio the same way she moves through life: with the belief that we are all connected, and we are here for each other.
Sharon Rickson
APLR Artist
A jack of all trades, Sharon Rickson has been involved in Indianapolis’ art community as a teacher, musician, and community organizer. Early exposure to Chicago’s music scene inspired her to start playing music. Eventually she started writing her own songs and gathering with other musically inclined individuals. She emerged into Indy’s art scene in her early twenties. After graduating from Herron School of Art with a degree in Art Education, she began her work as a teaching artist with the Indianapolis Art Center. From teaching underserved youth in the summer and after school programs to playing in various Indianapolis bands, her immersion in music inspired her to gather local musicians to help launch a music teaching non-profit, Girls Rock!
Uzuri Asad
APLR Artist
Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, Uzuri Asad now lives and works in the Garfield Park neighborhood of Indianapolis as part of Big Car Collaborative’s Artist in Public Life Residency program. She’s a singer, dancer, choreographer, and jewelry-maker. Formally trained in West African dance and contemporary movement, her art is guided by lived experiences and her cultural upbringing. Her style is a unique blend of fluid, free flowing, yet intentional movements. For Asad, dance is a sacred means of individual expression that lives and breathes through her.
Sylvia Thomas
APLR Artist
A poet, activist and artist, Sylvia began performing her spoken word in 2016. She performed at a few open mics and showcases in Indianapolis. From then on, she began to feature at different spots all over the state and the Midwest. In 2018, her words took her to Copenhagen, Denmark as a poet for Winter Pride. After her trip to Europe, she wrote a collection of poems for her debut chapbook, DIVINE. In 2020, she began displaying her creative process of her works on Patreon. In August of 2021, she was a headliner for Copenhagen 2021: World Pride and EuroGames. After her World Pride performance, she performed for a collaboration between the Global Queer Youth Network and the United Nation Envoy on Youth. Sylvia released her self-published book, Twirl: A Collection of Poetry by a Queer and Transgender Hoosier, in November of 2021 and VIGIL in September of 2023. She continues to travel and create more work.
APLR Artist
1Tru.ly is half of the Indianapolis based, genre-bending hip-hop, soul, and spoken word duo We Are Tribesoul. With Mariah Ivey, centering love, they’ve used their art as a catalyst to reimagine Black futurity and inspire hope within community. While they have yet to release a full studio-length album, they’ve rapidly developed a fan base through riveting live performances, high-energy stage presence, and a uniquely curated experience for each audience. We Are TribeSouL has had the pleasure of performing a host of shows in the Midwest region—most notably, GANGGANG’s inaugural fine arts festival Butter, as well as opening for Grammy Award winning artists Arrested Development and Anthony Hamilton, and contributing to the Emmy Award Winning Music-in-Transit series. After an extensive hiatus filled with rediscovery, growth, and self mastery, they are looking forward to continuing their journey through music.