A committee selected six Fellows from different study areas to engage with the Museum and its collections from July 1 to 31, 2025, during the second annual Clyfford Still Museum Institute Residential Fellowship Program in Denver, CO. The second group of fellows selected to participate include Geovanni “Geo” Barrios in Studio Art; Kealey Boyd and Michael Holloman in Art History/Criticism; Dr. Kyong-Ah Kwon in Early Childhood Education; and Marie Edland and Riley Jones, IV in Social Enterprise. Each Fellow will receive an honorarium, round-trip economy class travel to and from Denver, housing in Denver during the program, and workspace appropriate to the proposed project. The Fellows will also participate in a public program on July 28. Read the press release to learn more.
About the Fellows
Geovanni “Geo” Barrios (b. 1999) is a musician and visual artist whose work explores the evolution of American masculinity. Originally trained as an orchestral tubist, he transitioned into performance art, developing a multidisciplinary practice that examines identity, power, and social structures through music, drawing, sculpture, and archival research. Barrios holds a BA in Art History from Yale University and has worked in arts conservation at the Yale University Art Gallery and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His experiences with historical objects and preservation techniques inform his artistic practice. As a musician, he has performed across the United States at venues such as the Ely Center for Contemporary Art, Yale Center for British Art, and Yale University Art Gallery, as well as internationally in Mexico, Brazil, and Germany.
Kealey Boyd is a writer and art critic. She is a regular contributor to Hyperallergic and The Art Newspaper and her work is featured in the Los Angeles Times, Colorado Public Radio, Frieze, Art Papers, The Belladonna Comedy, College Art Association, Artillery Magazine, and several art catalogs and books, including this year’s Artists as Writers, published by Intellect Books as part of the Living and Sustaining a Creative Life series. She is a member of the Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art (AICA) and she served as an Executive Board Member for Redline Contemporary Art Center from 2018 to 2024. She earned her BA in Economics and MA in Art History from the University of Chicago. Her research interests include methodologies for interpreting painting and other visual forms as an integral element of political and cultural discourses.
Marie Edland joined the Barnes Foundation in 2022 as its first Strategic Research Analyst within the inaugural Evaluation & Impact Department. She holds an MA from Bryn Mawr College in French and Francophone Studies. Prior to transitioning to the arts non-profit sector, she spent five years working in brand strategy and market research agencies. Marie supports all ongoing institutional research projects at the Barnes Foundation, including program evaluation, visitor experience surveying, and external collaborative projects. She is passionate about promoting evaluation practices, frameworks, and approaches that uplift audience perspectives and deepen connections to arts organizations.
Michael Holloman, parent, artist, curator, and fine arts professor, is an enrolled member of the Colville Confederated Tribes. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Native American art history and the studio arts at Washington State University while maintaining duties as the college’s coordinator for Native Arts, Outreach and Education. His scholarship addresses the historic issues and visual record of Plateau settler colonialism and Native adaptation and self-assertion—regarding Clyfford Still, Holloman stresses the aesthetic dimension of his work as being infused with a spiritual power that sustains familial and communal memory while offering inspiration for a new generation.
Riley Jones, IV, is Executive Director for the Paul Robeson House and Museum and a leading voice in advocating for progressive social change. Before becoming Executive Director, Riley served on the West Philadelphia Cultural Alliance Board for three years, leading development efforts that resulted in, among other things, a $1 million philanthropic gift from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Jones is a graduate of Columbia University (BA) and holds a MS in Education Entrepreneurship from the University of Pennsylvania and a JD from New York University. He is currently pursuing a Doctorate in Education Leadership at Harvard University.
Kyong-Ah Kwon, PhD, is the Drusa B. Cable Endowed Chair and Professor at the University of Oklahoma. She is passionate about supporting young children’s learning and development in various contexts, including art museums. Her research examines how home and school environments influence early development. Dr. Kwon has secured over $6.3 million in grants, including for her nationally recognized Happy Teacher Project, which focuses on improving early childhood educators’ well-being and working conditions. She also leads the Happy Teacher Global Project in collaboration with scholars across five countries. She co-leads a national interdisciplinary group on ECE workforce well-being, serves on the steering committee for the Network for Infant Toddler Researchers, and is a guest editor for several leading journals in the field.
About The Institute at the Clyfford Still Museum
As it embarks on its second decade, the Clyfford Still Museum asked how else we might draw strength from this gift. One answer was to begin a new Institute residential fellowship program, which brings thought leaders and artists to Denver to engage with the Museum and its collections. The program started in 2024 and focuses on three pillars of study: art, education, and social enterprise. Applications for the 2025 Institute closed on January 31 and a committee selected six Fellows to participate in the second year of the program. Each Fellow will receive an honorarium, round-trip economy class travel to and from Denver, housing in Denver during the program, and workspace appropriate to the proposed project. The Fellows will also participate in a public program on July 28.
Areas of Focus
The Still offers fellowships in the following categories:
Studio Art
The Fellow will pursue studio practice that would benefit from research on and engagement with CSM’s collection and/or archives.
Art History or Criticism
The Fellow will deeply study CSM’s collections and archives to illuminate the historical and philosophical stakes of Still’s art and writings, to bring his work in vibrant conversation with the work of his peers as well as those of subsequent generations, and/or find critical resonance between his work and that of contemporary artists.
Early Childhood Education
The Fellow will develop projects that would benefit from and contribute to the practices in early childhood education pursued by the Learning and Engagement team at CSM. Proposed projects would advance the development of new possibilities at the intersections of art museums, education, and early learning.
Social Enterprise
The Fellow will thoroughly investigate financial frameworks suitable for nonprofits and social enterprises, such as our own, that support the freedom of innovation.