Exhibition: Novo Legado: Bmore Legends

This exhibition highlights new works of Baltimore artists whose livelihood and art practice reach beyond their solo careers. It was curated by the Hot Sauce Artist Collective as a love letter to three established artists, Ernest Shaw, Erin Fostel, and 2020 Sondheim winner LaToya Hobbs, as well as emerging artists Alpha Massaquoi, Italo De Déa, and Kayla Fryer, who are deeply inspired by these Baltimore art luminaries.

The Hot Sauce Artist Collective is a Baltimore-based artist-run organization. Their mission is to give opportunities to emerging and established artists by showing their artwork in untraditional gallery spaces. They bring the gallery environment to parking lots, city parks and trails. Three of the four collective co-founders are Towson University alums: Alpha Massaquoi (TU BFA ’19), Italo De Déa (TU MFA ’20), Alexandre Edoh Yao Amegah (TU BFA ‘18) (currently on sabbatical) and Kayla Fryer (UM BA 19).

“ We want everyone to remember every major art movement started with a small group of friends who were crazy enough to share their art with their communities, and the communities were crazy enough to support them ”

Alpha Massaquoi, Hot Sauce Artist Collective co-founder

Towson University Galleries and the Community Art Center (CAC) invited the Hot Sauce Artist Collective to explore the artist collective model, its impact on the arts community with this exhibition, and community events. This project is part of the CAC and TU Galleries' mission to use the exhibitions as a learning lab to mentor current and recent TU graduates.

Curators: Alpha Massaquoi (TU BFA ’19) and Italo De Déa (TU MFA ’20)

Hear from artists James Alpha Massaquoi, Jr. ’19 and Italo De Déa ’20, as well as Community Art Center Director Stacy Arnold who, with TU Galleries Director Erin Lehman, brought them back to TU.