Michaela Pilar Brown

Michaela Pilar Brown trained as a sculptor at Howard University, though she cut her teeth in the halls of a museum in Denver, CO, where her mother worked as a security guard. She has been immersed in the culture of objects for her entire life. Brown’s practice includes photography, sculpture, installation, performance, and social intervention through moderated public discussion. Brown seeks to open dialogue in artists’ communities that catalyze dialogue and ignite change. Brown's relationship to her community is an active and urgent part of her practice. She serves as a facilitator with Artists U, an incubator for changing the working conditions of artists, and has served on multiple boards. She is the owner/director of Mike Brown Contemporary, a contemporary art space and gallery based in Columbia, SC.

Brown was the 2011 Harvey B. Gantt AIR at the McColl Center for Art and Innovation. She is one of the six American artists selected to participate as a Resident Artist for OPEN IMMERSION: A VR CREATIVE DOC LAB, produced by the CFC Media Lab, The National Film Board of Canada (NFB), and and JustFilms | Ford Foundation. She was an Inaugural Resident Artist at the 2016 Sedona Summer Colony and a 2016 Artist-in-Residence at Kunstlerwerkgemeinschaft, Kaiserslautern, Germany. She is the 2018 grand prize winner of Art Fields, a regional juried art competition.