Alumni artist collective returns to TU to curate summer gallery show

By Rebecca Kirkman on July 11, 2021

This summer, two Towson University alumni have returned to campus to curate a gallery exhibition highlighting Baltimore’s vibrant artist community. 

“Novo Legado: Bmore Legends” is on view in the Holtzman MFA Gallery in the Center for the Arts through July 24 and online. It is curated by Hot Sauce Artists Collective, an artist-run organization dedicated to giving opportunities to emerging artists. Three of its four founders are College of Fine Arts & Communication alumni.

The exhibition includes artwork from Hot Sauce co-founders James Alpha Massaquoi, Jr. ’19, Italo De Déa ’20 and Kayla Fryer, as well as Ernest Shaw, Erin Fostel and 2020 Sondheim Award winner LaToya Hobbs. (Hot Sauce's fourth co-founder Alexandre Edoh Yao Amegah ’18 is currently on sabbatical.)

“‘Novo Legado’ is a love letter to the Baltimore artists who we see as legends, the artists who are on top of the game and just bringing them also to the Towson community,” says Massaquoi, who studied art with a concentration in painting, drawing and printmaking. Returning to Towson University with Hot Sauce Artists Collective to curate the exhibition, he says, is “the best thing ever—it’s like a homecoming show for us.”

In fact, Towson University is where the collective’s co-founders met and built friendships.

“Towson is the basis of everything for me,” says De Déa, a Brazilian native who earned an MFA in Studio Art at TU. “I was painting and drawing but had no training, I had no network. And Towson gave me all of that. In all aspects—personally, professionally, even spiritually—the conversation we had here laid the ground for me to be where I’m at and have the knowledge I have, too.” 

Later, they began working together to pitch group shows to local galleries. 

“James came up with the idea of ‘Let’s make this a collective, let’s keep going as a group, but instead of looking and applying for opportunities, why not create our own?’” De Déa recalls. 

The group’s diverse background and skills in art education and curation gave them the confidence to not only create art but also the framework to share art with others in new ways, like outdoor pop-ups during the pandemic.

“The way we curate is less academic and less conceptually driven and is much more about the people we bring in [and] the energy that's going to happen there,” he adds.

“Novo Legado” is the first time TU has invited an artist collective to curate a show on campus. The collaboration came together through TU Galleries Director Erin Lehman and Community Art Center Director Stacy Arnold, who worked with Massaquoi and De Déa as students. When they saw Hot Sauce Artists Collective begin to emerge last summer, they wanted to bring them back to TU.

“We’re always looking for ways to connect our Community Art program and the galleries with and through our alumni to the community at large,” says Arnold, who is working with the collective to mount the exhibition. 

The show can serve as a model for expanding the use of gallery spaces on campus and an opportunity for current students to explore the artist collective model. “We’re happy to use our space to support community activity and programming with a new and upcoming generation,” Lehman says. “It offers an excellent opportunity to explore the business model of the artist collective in today’s environment at the same time.”

Exhibition Programming

Two programmatic events will be offered: an artist panel via Zoom and an in-person printmaking workshop at TU. The gallery will be open to the public on three Saturdays: July 10, 17 and 24, from 1–6 p.m. and by appointment by emailing tugalleries@towson.edu. 

Panel Discussion | Connecting with the Community: The Artist Collective Model

Thursday, July 15 at 7 p.m. | via Zoom (password: Hotsauce)
Artists Erin Fostel, LaToya Hobbs and Ernest Shaw talk about working with the Hot Sauce Artists Collective, what it means to have other artists amplify new work, the benefits of the artist collective as a model for the art community and how the collective engages communities in Baltimore. Moderated by Hot Sauce co-founder James Alpha Massaquoi, Jr.

K. Sizzlin Printmaking Workshop | Kayla Fryer

Saturday, July 17 from 1–5 p.m. | TU Center for the Arts | Adults 18+ | CA 3004
Registration required | $15 registration fee (includes supplies)
Hot Sauce Artists Collective co-founder Kayla Fryer will conduct a gallery tour of her work displayed in “Novo Legado,” then conduct a workshop on how to apply the printmaking techniques she incorporates into her artwork. Pre-registration is required.