Anything But Still

Derrick Davis 

Derrick Davis Jr. is a photographer, griot, and aspiring Speech Language Pathologist.  Above all, he’s an adventurous, critical Black boy navigating a complex world. He seeks to find beauty internally through self-portraits. He captures beauty externally through landscape street photography and documentary-style photography of the community. His ultimate goal is to achieve peace and express all forms of himself. Whether it’s his advocacy for human rights, his career in communication, or his love for many subjects, he wants to see himself and all Black people, have the freedom to express themselves in any form. 

Derrick attended UNC-Chapel Hill for his undergraduate, earning a degree in Hispanic Linguistics with a minor in African, African American, and Diaspora Studies. He is new to the art world with his first work exhibited in the NorthStar Church of the Art. His pieces, Goofy Kreme (2024) and Pass the Kollection Plate (2024) are part of the UPROOT: BIPOC  Visions of our Food System organized by the Durham Powerful Arts Collective (DurmPAC) and the Committee On Racial Equity of the Center for Environmental Farming Systems at NC State. 

While new to the exhibition space, he has experience curating stories through sneakers and clothing while working in Visual, Merchandising, and Styling at Nike’s House of Innovation  Flagship Store in New York City. He’s looking forward to new experiences as he continues to find his voice and confidence in his art. 

Yana Slutskaya

Yana Slutskaya is a Russian-born award-winning professional artist and contemporary still-life photographer based in Clayton, North Carolina. She holds a BA degree in Fine Arts, majoring in Painting and Theatrical Design, from Moscow State Academic Art College. 

She finds competitions and solo exhibitions incredibly rewarding, as they give her a chance to be part of the creative community while also showing her works at galleries, and museums, as well as to collectors and art enthusiasts nationally and abroad. Yana’s works were featured at the North Carolina Museum of Art, Cameron Art Museum, Research Triangle Foundation, 311 Gallery, C-MAC Gallery, Campbell House Gallery, Truist Gallery, ArtFields Festival, Cary Gallery of Arts, and others.  According to the prestigious International Photography Awards 2024 35AWARDS, she was recognized as a TOP 70 USA photographer.  

Yana is well known for her unique style of still-life photography inspired by classic European art traditions. In her works, she strives to weave together storytelling and visual delight while infusing them with hidden symbolism and deep philosophical meaning. 

Leah Sobsey 

Leah Sobsey is an image maker, Associate Professor of Photography, Curator, and Director of the Gatewood Gallery at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.   

Recent exhibitions include Photofairs NYC, The Sachs Museum, The Harvard Museum of Natural History, Paris Photo, and a forthcoming exhibitions at the Brandywine Museum and the Huntington Museum, CA. Her books include This Earthen Door Datz Press, 2024. Collections: Birds Bones and Butterflies, 2016, and Bull City Summer, 2013. Her work is held in private and public collections across the country, including the North Carolina Museum of Art, Bill Gates-Microsoft, Fidelity Investments, Cassihaus, Duke Hospital, Duke Raleigh Hospital, Maine Media College, Rose Community Foundation Denver and many more. She has been an artist in residence at Virginia Center for the Arts, Dumbarton Oaks, Plant Humanities residency, Ayatana Research residency, Penland, Mother’s Milk, The National Park system, Vermont Studio Center, Hewnoaks artist colony, and Hambidge to name a few. Her images have appeared in Artnews, New Yorker.com, the Paris Review Daily, Slate.com, Hyperallergic.com, The Telegraph, and Audubon. Sobsey has exhibited internationally, and her work is held in private and public collections across the US. She is represented by Rick Wester Fine Art. 

Instagram @leahsobsey | leahsobsey.com 

huiyin zhou 

Born and raised in the industrial hub of Dongguan, China, huiyin zhou 徽音 (they/she) is a transnational queer feminist organizer and community-based photographer, writer, translator and multimedia artist. They are based in Durham, NC and NYC. They work with digital and analog photography, text, installation, and performance. Photographing with intimate and tender sensibilities, huiyin explores themes related to queer feminism, intimacy, memory, diaspora, and community and approaches photography with a relational, reciprocal praxis.   

Other than photography and writing, huiyin co-founded and co-direct a queer feminist art and activist collective, Chinese Artists and Organizers (CAO) Collective. They are a 2024-25 resident at Durham Art Guild and a 2023-24 resident at BRIClab: Contemporary Art Disability Artistry as a co-leading artist for CAO. huiyin has received accolades such as SEEK Raleigh (2024-25, Raleigh NC), John Hope Franklin Documentary Award (2023, Durham, NC), Benenson Award in the Arts (2023, NC), Dora Anne Little Service Award (2023), and Budding Writer 文学新苗(2019, Guangdong Writers’ Association, China). huiyin’s individual and collaborative work has been shown nationally. huiyin holds a B.A. degree in Cultural Anthropology from Duke University.