Our Program is juried, a group of experts in the fields of Art and Culture pour through each submission and evaluate it based a set of criteria.

Council Terms

  • Applicants must live in Atlanta, and demonstrate a strong arts and culture background or work in an arts adjacent field.
  • Jury members may not hold any political office while serving.

Call for Jurors for the 2023- 2024 Exhibition

ABI is currently seeking qualified art enthusiasts (must have a background in arts education, management, curation or creation) to serve as jurors for the 2023-2024 AOAB exhibition season. Jurors will review proposals and score them based on the metric established in the RFP. Jurors will be compensated for their time. Participants cannot currently be serving as an elected government official or appointee.


2022—2023 Jurors

We are pleased to announce our distinguished art professionals who will serve as our 2022—2023 jurors. We thank them for their time and thoughtful review of each artist application.

Temika Grooms

TeMika Grooms is an Atlanta-based artist, author, and arts advocate. Her interest in art and storytelling began early in life under the influence of her mother, an artist, educator, and librarian. Creative art practices provided TeMika with an outlet during challenging transitional periods as a military child settling in Columbus, Georgia. Under the direction of wonderful teachers, she was provided a well-rounded education that supported her artistic talent and ability to capture and animate the human form with strong, fluid lines and expressive movement. To expand on her traditional art making skills, TeMika is exploring the use of technology in art by creating digital paintings and surveying new avenues to bring interactive art to the public.

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TeMika was selected for the international 2008 Taller Norte Portobelo Artist-in-Residence program to work on an illustrated sequential art project and present an art workshop to Spanish-speaking children in Portobelo, Panama. Since that time, she has produced multiple books in children’s literature and community art programs to support creative initiatives. Her published works include a sugary-sweet picture book titled “Nana’s Favorite Things” by Dorothy H. Price (Eifrig Press) and “Save the Crash-test Dummies”, an engaging non-fiction book by Jennifer Swanson (Peachtree Publishing). Most recently, TeMika was selected as a 2021 Mentee for the We Need Diverse Book Mentorship Program.

She is the Founder and Program Coordinator for KidsLitATL, a grassroots organization to support a diverse group of creators in Atlanta, Georgia. She hosts several events each year to support children’s book writers and illustrators in developing their work. She currently volunteers with the international organization Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) as the U.S. Illustrator Coordinator and serves on Board of Advisors Equity and Inclusion Committee to impact the inclusion of diverse voices within the children’s book publishing industry.

TeMika enjoys hiking, traveling, cultural dance, and playing in her garden. She lives on the outskirts of Atlanta, Georgia with her cat, Nina Simone, and her two daughters, Thing One and Thing Two.

Ginger Tonaveetong

Marisa (Ginger) Tontaveetong is a multidisciplinary Creative Animation Director/ Producer. She is the managing director of Slothique multimedia production studio and animation director at BWAStudios. Her latest work includes Vincent D’Onofrio and George R.R. Martin’s “Night of the Cooters”(2022 Release) as post-production manager for Trioscope Studios. She has 15+ years of design background with an MFA in Animation from SCAD and a B.Tech in Computer Graphics/ Multimedia from Bangkok University, where she is also a Hall of Fame Alumni.

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Her animated short “Starlight” was longlisted for the Oscars, and various other projects have screened at Tribeca, Festival De Cannes, and other prestigious festivals. Currently based in Atlanta, she is the executive director of UNESCO- affiliated 501c(3) ASIFA-SOUTH International Animation Society-South. She works in many capacities for ACM SIGGRAPH as the Early Career Development Chair, Nurturing committee, and as a past SIGGRAPH ASIA BKK 2017 Computer Animation Festival Producer. She has juries, curates, sits on panels, and screens animation for various festivals, including the Atlanta Film Festival, SIGGRAPH, and ASIFAC, and usually watches over 500+ animated shorts a year.

John Dirga

John Dirga is an Atlanta artist and musician. His media include acrylic, watercolor, wood assemblage, and video/performance installation. Dirga is the Music Director for the Chomp & Stomp Festival, and Director of Forward Warrior Mural Project on Wylie Street with Curator Peter Ferrari (2022 Award of Excellence, Atlanta Urban Design Commission). He is a Founder & Director of Stacks Squares Mural Project at Fulton Cotton Mill with award-winning curator Austin Blue, and Founder/Director of the Cabbagetown Concert Series.

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An active community organizer and arts advocate, John has participated in leadership role within the neighborhood organization for over 20 years, currently serving as Secretary for NPU-N, and Board Member of The Patch Works Art & History Center.

Originally from St Petersburg Florida, John lives in Cabbagetown with his wife Katherine and their rescue mutt Lily.

Justin Archer

Justin W. Archer (b.1989) is a sculptor whose work considers the fragility and wonder found in the contemporary human experience. He received his M.F.A. in 2016 from the University of North Texas, and joined SCAD: Atlanta in 2019 and is a Professor of Scuplture. Archer’s work has been exhibited at Love Field Airport in Dallas, Cross-Pollination Art Lab in Atlanta, the Louisiana Biennial, R02 Gallery in Dallas, Miami University in Ohio, and many other galleries nationally.

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He has artwork in the collections of the Thompson Buckhead, Texas Tech University, the Methodist Health System Foundation, Music Bed, along with many others. He lives with his wife, Laura, in Atlanta, Georgia.

Margaret Johnson

Margaret Johnson is a curator and art consultant based in ATL, GA, and NYC. With over 13 years of experience managing an array of public realm programming, Margaret has delivered creative visions, art strategies, and procurement policies for companies, developers, and government organizations in the US, China, Southeast Asia, Australia, and the Middle East.

Denise Jackson

Denise Jackson is the founder of Town + Culture and an independent curator and art consultant based in Atlanta. With a BA in Applied Behavioral Sciences from National-Louis University, she finds purpose in getting art in front of a broad audience. Since 2008, she has curated more than 100 art shows, exhibiting regional, national, and international artists. Coursework with the Node Center for Curatorial Studies and experiential work inform her practice.

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She founded Emerging Art Scene Gallery in 2009, initially in the Fulton Cotton Mills, then in Castleberry Hill. She featured new art exhibits every month and was instrumental in the vibrancy of the area’s monthly Art Stroll. Denise served as Curator for the Movement Gallery of Art in 2014/2015. As an Art Consultant with Restoration Hardware (RH) Contemporary Art in 2015/2016, she supported the original art platform as they opened design galleries across the US.
Denise spent time in Quebec City, Quebec (CA), where she assisted the 2017 Manif D’Art 8 Biennial in English. Since returning to Atlanta in 2017, she has curated art exhibits at Serendipity Labs, Cambria, and the Wiley Gallery, along with 2022 exhibits with her Town + Culture Gallery.

In addition, Denise is Exhibits Asst. Project Manager at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens since March 2022, where she is planning exhibits for the Gardenhouse Gallery, the Gainesville Gardens, and the Orchid Daze Exhibit.

Kacie Willis

Kacie is a creator and arts advocate based out of Atlanta, Georgia. She earned her BS in Music Recording Technology from Hampton University and MFA in Sound Design from Savannah College of Art and Design. After participating in the 2019 Spotify Sound Up accelerator program she formed the production company Could Be Pretty Cool whose mission is to produce unique creative experiences to inspire community building through the arts. She is the creator and host of the Spotify Original podcast You Heard Me Write and has been named one of the ’40 Under 40 in Podcasting’ by Podcast Magazine. Kacie has also served as a theatrical sound designer, arts administrator and speaker for local and national arts and cultural organizations.

Daryl Fazio

Daryl Lisa Fazio is a theatre artist—playwright, actor, and graphic designer—originally from small-town Mississippi. Her works for the stage have been produced Off-Broadway as well as numerous professional regional theaters in the southeast and east coast. She has written commissions for Horizon Theatre and Emory University, and she has received awards and development at the NAMT Festival of New Musicals, the Alliance Theatre, O’Neill Playwrights Conference (Finalist & Semi-Finalist), New York Musical Theatre Festival, and the Playwrights Foundation Bay Area Playwrights Festival (Finalist).

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Developmental workshops: Actor’s Express Threshold Festival, Synchronicity Theatre SHEwrites, Emory University Brave New Works, Truman State University, 7 Stages, Working Title Playwrights, Florida Rep. As an actor, she has appeared with Theatrical Outfit, Out Front Theatre, Found Stages, and others. Before moving to Atlanta in 2010, she taught college-level graphic design at Truman State University and Coastal Carolina University. Daryl is currently a freelance graphic designer for arts organizations around the country, and during the pandemic wrote her first novel and immersive audio fiction anthology series. She lives in Adair Park on the Westside Trail. BA Theatre: Northwestern University. MFA Graphic Design: University of Memphis. www.darylfazio.com / www.darylsplays.com Originally from St Petersburg Florida, John lives in Cabbagetown with his wife Katherine and their rescue mutt Lily.

Rosi Mosca-Herrera

Rosi Mosca Herrera is a Venezuelan-Italian who has been living in Atlanta on and off for almost twenty years. She is a self-proclaimed “fan girl” of the arts. She has a background in musical theater, theater production and earned her BA in Digital filmmaking with a minor in English writing from the American University of Rome in Italy.

Rosi is committed to bringing new audiences to the classical arts in order to best push change and more diversity in these institutions. She is a board member of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s young professionals group and loves to support other Atlanta institutions like the Atlanta Opera, Atlanta Ballet, The Woodruff Arts Center and her dearest Terminus Modern Ballet Theater.

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Currently Rosi is raising her first child and working part time as a communications consultant and translator. She is a language nerd who speaks Spanish, Italian, English and has been trying hard to learn Portuguese and Korean.

Sammie Mahone

A 1964 graduate of Sumter County High School in Americus, Georgia, Sam Mahone is a co-founder and Chair of the Americus-Sumter County Movement Remembered Committee, Inc., a 501© (3) organization founded in 2007, and dedicated to identifying, collecting, preserving and archiving all documentation of the Americus-Sumter County Civil Rights Movement of 1962-1966, and preserving related historic sites. Our organization is currently working to establish the Americus Civil Rights Museum and Cultural Center in the Historic “Americus Colored Hospital” building on J.R. Campbell Street in Americus, Georgia.

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The organization also serves to extend past struggles into the present by becoming a valuable resource for educational outreach and leadership development. As afield staff member in the StudentA’on-///olentCoordinalingCommiltee(SNCC), 1conducted voter education and registration campaigns, coupled with political and community activism in Americus and Sumter County, Terrell, Lee and Crisp counties in Southwest Georgia, Lowndes County (Selma) Alabama, and rural Mississippi.

Becky Bivens

Becky Bivens grew up in Atlanta and currently serves as Kirk Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History and Manager of Collections at Agnes Scott College. Her teaching and research focus on modern and contemporary art. Her current book project, Art Criticism in the Wild: Wolfgang Paalen, Clement Greenberg, Lucy Lippard, examines mid-twentieth century art critics’ differing views on emotion. Based on her dissertation, it has been supported by the Thoma Foundation, the Getty Research Institute, and the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC).

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Since 2010, she has taught art history surveys, art criticism, modern and postwar American Art, exhibitions studies, global contemporary art, philosophy of art, history of photography, and gender studies. Becky is a graduate of Agnes Scott College (BA, Studio Art) and the University of Chicago (AM, Humanities). She earned her PhD in Art History from UIC in 2022.

Jina DuVerney

Jina DuVernay is a librarian, archivist and cultural consultant who is active in the field of librarianship and initiatives that advocate for the collection, stewardship and discoverability of resources related to African American history and culture. DuVernay serves as a Councilor-at-Large and as a Coretta Scott King Book Award Juror for the American Library Association (ALA). DuVernay is currently pursuing a PhD in Humanities at Clark Atlanta University (CAU) where she works in the university’s Center for Africana Digital Humanities.