On Display: Kristan Woolford
April 2024
On April 10th the Analog Detox Team + eurketSTEAMLabs Board attended Georgia Tech’s Ivan Allen School of Liberal Arts, School of Literature, Media, and Communication (LMC) DIGITAL MEDIA Demo Day, led by Harvard graduate Dr. Janet Horowitz Murray, Dr. Brian Magerko, additional professors, staff, and graduate students. Kristan Woolford, Professor by day/Artist by night, is an alum of the program.
The Goat Farm has reemerged, after years of renovation, displaying Woolford’s famous “Tr@scend” piece (featuring the Edmund Pettus Bridge) in their permanent gallery.
May 3rd and May 10th mixed-media digital artist Kristan Woolford’s “Fr33 the L@nd” piece will be featured on an 8-story skyscraper (deemed the largest movie screen in the Southeast) near the North Avenue bridge on The Beltline (created by Georgia Tech alumus Ryan Gravel). This will happen in collaboration with Emory Professor Gregory Zinman’s experimental art film series, titled “Off the Wall @ 725 Ponce”, in partnership with Cousins Properties, which illuminates the Eastside BeltLine Trail. “Off the Wall” is fully supported by Emory Initiative for Arts and Humanistic Inquiry, underwritten by the Office of the Provost.
Woolford has recently accepted the request to be the newest board member of The Creatives Project, whose mission is to enrich and strengthen local communities through quality arts-based education and outreach, while celebrating and elevating the city's creative talents through local artist residency programs. Fellow board members include AIA, LEED AP BD +C architect Sarah Hoke of Gensler, programming analyst Raven Hinson of CNN, artist Masud Olufani of Morehouse, and neurology/neurosurgery professor Dr. Thomas of Emory University.
His list of international collaborations continues to grow. Upon arrival to the states Senegalese-French Afro-eco-feminist artist T.I.E (Ngnima Sarr) of Villa-Albertine visited Woolford’s studio near the High Museum of Art, along with eurketSTEAMlab’s chair Jacinda, to discuss the Arts in Georgia for her esteemed French Residency representing the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, supported by the French Ministry of Culture. In partnership with Deanna Sirlin, Swedish writer and researcher J.David Vandevert, co-founder of the Global Hip Hop Reading Room and an expert of post-Soviet Russian rap is interviewing Woolford for the Art Section.
Light It Up: Kristan Woolford
March 2024
With a new line up of collaborations underway, Atlanta’s leading mixed-media digital artist Kristan Woolford is en route to monumental expansion.
A film professor by trade, Woolford kicked off the year with an artist talk at Miami Ad School, which highlighted his past works and included several live performances by eurketSTEAMLab’s musicians-in-development to display VPDJing techniques.
In celebration of MLK Day, Woolford partnered with Georgia Tech’s OMED to serve on a FOCUS panel with Dr. Michael Hatcher, CEO of Sovereign Construction & Development and CBRE’s Britt Williams at the Georgia Tech Hotel in Tech Square.
You can find his latest work, in collaboration with eurketSTEAMLabs at MODA in Midtown in support of their “Please Be Seated: A Century of Chair Design” exhibition. While the main exhibition takes you on a journey of classic and contemporary chair designs, exploring the stories of furniture designers like Philippe Starck, Moooi, Verner Panton, Paola Lenti, Eileen Gray, Ron Arad and more, Kristan Woolford and his fellow fine artists created philanthropic chairs to highlight social issues, spanning from women’s rights to environmental protection.
The Kristan Woolford x eurketSTEAMLabs chair, “Empress 1.0” highlights Women in Technology, with a gamer girl inspired chair complete with a glowing hyacinth flower and a hidden yellow jacket disguised as a honey bee on back to bring the chair’s mini computer, a raspberry pie, to life. Woolford’s co-creator, eurketSTEAMLabs Board of Director chair, Jacinda Thomas was inspired by her background in engineering, technology, agriculture, and the arts. Particularly her efforts to “Save the Bees” and improve Georgia’s air quality and environment by designing the world’s first Apiary Park, in partnership with Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, with co-collaborators, Morehouse alum, Geordon Streat and Julian Streete. View MODA’s Please Be Seated: A Century of Chair Design, here.
Kristan Woolford, also the co-creator of VPDJ’ing, debuted his unique style of digital artistry by invitation to Princeton University alongside beat-boxing Princeton professor Chesney Snow, philosopher Al-Yasha, fine arts dancer T-Lang, pianist AJ, and VPDJ co-creator Jacinda at Princeton’s Lewis Arts Complex for artistic expression.
Stay tuned for Woolford’s Spring 2024 Open Studios with Midtown Alliance in which he will invite the fine arts community to view his latest creations while in progress.
He Shines at Night: Kristan Woolford
December 2023
With his masterful use of color and form, it appears Salvadore Dali and Andy Warhol have tapped Atlanta’s leading mixed-media digital artist Kristan Woolford to reimagine surrealism and pop art for the modern day. With the use of projection technology this Hampton + Georgia Tech Masters alum carefully synthesizes the original pillars of hip hop with social justice themes onto a variety of large-scale canvases, including: windows, walls, screens, and skyscrapers.
In fact, his limited edition Tr@nscend prints, featuring the iconic Edmund Pettus Bridge, already have the who’s who of Atlanta collecting them including the former president of The Woodruff Arts Center and The Center for Civil and Human Rights. His most recent piece is on display at the Emory Science Gallery in Pullman Yards to celebrate 50 Years of Hip Hop, while you can still enjoy his Peter Street Station piece “Chee$e” featuring Atlanta’s famous waterboys on banners throughout midtown Atlanta. His 2024 collaboration list continues to grow and will include features at the Midtown Alliance Art Walk, MODA, JFA in Buckhead, and Princeton University.
Woolford’s 2020 Midtown Alliance collaboration displayed one of his unique techniques at 999 Peachtree St with colors and visuals to evoke a feeling of calmness to passersby in light of the pandemic. Kristan Woolford’s upcoming 2024 Exhibition will be extension of this theme. “Aurora Ain’t Atlanta” will be a full immersive experience that will transport visitors to a surrealist take on aurora borealis, while mixing in what Atlanta is loved and known for: hip-hop. Those that visit this winter exhibition will enjoy therapeutic visuals, atmospheric music, virtual reality tours, curated NFT Gallery, Short Film Contest, VPDJ classes with celebrity guests, AI lectures, and more. Purchase tickets to this debut event here.
In addition to serving on several boards, including the Office of Cultural Affairs Mayor’s Panel, Kristan’s Midtown Alliance residency, in partnership with MODA and Perkins&Will, has included features at Atlanta Art Week and an ever growing list of requests.