CHICAGO- Kappa Chapter of Gamma Xi Phi, the professional fraternity for artists, presented a virtual artist talk featuring Venise Keys and Dionne Victoria, two dynamic artists on the South Side. The event was hosted by Ms. Natalie B, another accomplished creator, social justice advocate, and long-time business partner of Dionne Victoria. These high-energy artists performed live poetry before showing a recorded artist statement showing a progression of artwork to its current studio evolution.

“The artist talk went really well. It was engaging and was well received with the audience. It was great to have an opportunity to get to know two extraordinary artists of Chicago,” said Natalie Battles, President of The Healing Academy and host of the Artist Talk.

Venise Keys is a visual artist, writer, and educator raised on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois. Venise’s art has exhibited at Front Room Gallery in Brooklyn, NY as well as the Museum Science and Industry, Plus Gallery, Woman Made Gallery, and Intersect Chicago (formally known as SOFA: Sculpture, Objects, and Functional Art & Design Fair) in Chicago. She has a Bachelors and Master’s degree in Painting with a Certificate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies for her research on Black Feminist politics. She served as adjunct faculty of art for Illinois Central College, Bradley University, and has lectured at Dillard University on the role of the Black artist. This work is published in the scholarly journal, Kalfou: Comparative and Relational Ethnic Studies. This year, Venise’s writing on art education has circulated to Norway, and she is recently published in a New York arts and culture magazine, Hyperallergic. Venise is currently a visual art teacher at Art In Motion Creative Arts School and is the program director for the Kappa Chapter of Gamma Xi Phi.

Dionne Victoria is an educator and award winning Chicago artist whose artwork is a meditative tool to heal and express the soul. Dionne Victoria has exhibited in the United States Congress Library as well as in the Museum of Science and Industry. She has taught all over the Chicagoland area, in other states and in South Korea where she taught English, using art as a modality. She has developed a science-arts integration curriculum and She began her curating career under Tye Johnson Artistry and has curated all over Chicago including at the historic South Side Community Art Center. She has a Masters in Teaching from the University of Chicago and is a Field/WORK and HPAC resident alum. She is currently a science teacher at Art In Motion and holds the chair as treasurer and cofounder of the Healing Academy and is deputy and membership director for Gamma Xi Phi Kappa Chapter.

Gamma Xi Phi was established in 2010 at Ramapo College to provide a fraternal outlet for students engaged in the arts. Today it maintains a presence of working artists from Vancouver, British Columbia, to the northeastern and southern regions of the United States.