Current News
Join Visionary Leaders Circle Today!
The VISIONARY LEADERS CIRCLE is a new annual fund launching Fall 2021 to champion Transformer’s support of emerging artists & arts leaders.
Envisioning
Envisioning: Benefit Exhibition & Online Auction at American University’s Katzen Arts Center November 6-21, 2021!
Shop the FlatFile!
Transformer's FlatFile is a growing and ever-changing collection of 400+ works by 40+ artists. All works are 2D, sized 16" x 20" or smaller, and priced at $500 and below.
Siren Arts: Ripple
E18: Performance Art
Introducing Transformer’s New Board and Staff Members!
Transformer is thrilled to announce our two new Board and our two new Staff members!
Introducing Transformer's New Board Members
Jennifer Sakai is a fine art photographer, curator and professor who resides in Washington D.C. She received her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in Fine Art Photography, and her BFA in fine art design in Cambridge Massachusetts. She has taught at The Park School of Communication at Ithaca College, Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond Virginia, The Corcoran School of Art and Design, George Washington University, and the MFA program at American University.
Jennifer is curator of ‘Border Wall’ at the Katzen Museum late Fall 2020, and ‘The Gifts of Tony Podesta’ at the Katzen Arts Center of American University Winter 2019.
She has served on committees for IMF/World Bank Photographic Society, juried for ExposedDC and VCU School of Art thesis program, received distinction from FotoWeek DC in the Fine Art Photography category and has presented numerous curatorial and professional lectures.
Ms.Sakai has shown at The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., The Anderson Gallery in Richmond, Virginia, Addison Ripley Fine Art, Washington, D.C., Lightwork Gallery, Syracuse New York, Rubenstein Arts Center at Duke University and the Handwerker Gallery in Ithaca, NY.
Her artistic practice examines the landscape as reflection for interior moments in life, often separated by years yet unraveling and overlapping to inform new narratives. Images chronicle how the topographies and space we inhabit influence and resonate long after we pass through them; and how one can be mesmerized by a place even in its absence.
She has published in American University Press, Fotofilmic, Float Magazine, Color Tag Magazine and The Tiny Seed Literary Journal.
Jennifer has been selected as an artist for Charcoal Publishing Chico Review in Montana for Fall 2021.
She is the recipient of a DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Grant for her photographic practice.
Virginia Shore is a curator, producer, arts advocate, and advisor, with extensive expertise in contemporary and modern art in all media. Shore served as 'Chief Curator' and 'Acting Director' of the US Department of State, Office of Art in Embassies for over 20 years. She envisioned, established, and led the Department's first art acquisitions and commissioning division. Overseeing all acquisitions, commissioning, and coordination for 79 new US Embassies and Consulates worldwide, while curating 54 of those collections in 12 years. Shore successfully expanded AIE's budgets and mission to include international artists (emerging through established), while promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion as a critical focus for all AIE collections, exhibitions, collaborations, and cultural diplomacy.
She has curated hundreds of international exhibitions. She has collaborated with thousands of artists domestically and globally. She has worked with hundreds of dealers, institutions, universities, foundations, ambassadors, diplomats, collectors globally. Currently, Shore is a consulting curator and art advisor to the Obama Foundation for the Obama Presidential Center, the Fredriksen Family Collection (building a collection focused on diversity and inclusion) for the first public-private partnership with the new National Museum of Norway, the Emerson Collective, and the Hall Group. She recently produced YOU VOTE a GOTV campaign with Jenny Holzer + leaders, athletes, musicians, institutions, universities in five of the swing states, continuing in Georgia.
Welcome New Staff to Transformer!
Autumn Banner | Development & Operations Manager
Autumn has a degree in international politics from North Carolina State University and has used her minors in nonprofit studies and Spanish to advance her current career and interests. Autumn is passionate about the cultivation of culture in her community and can be found exploring DC’s many art spaces, restaurants, and neighborhoods! Welcome, Autumn!
Hanna Thompson | Marketing & Communications Associate
Hanna has B.A's in both History & Arts Management from the College of Charleston and has lived in Washington, D.C. the past 1.5 years. Hanna is passionate about the arts and is very excited to engage with emerging D.C. artists while also discovering the diverse arts landscape of the city! Welcome Hanna!
