A+I Artists
We would be nothing without the remarkable artists bringing moments of joy and reflection to our public spaces. Read on to learn more about each local artist we are currently working with.
If you are an artist interested in working with us on a mural or other public art projects, please send us a link to your website or a set of relevant images to art.plus.infrastructure@gmail.com.
Meet the Art+ists
Celeste Butler
Celeste Butler is a fiber and textile artist, Quiltologist, and storyteller based in Omaha, NE. Butler has worked on several community engagement art projects, celebrating the pride and culture of North Omaha and collaborating with mothers who have lost their children to violence, developing set design for 2019 Union Fellow Liz Gre’s opera Whispered Like the Wind, and more. Butler has participated in in-school artist-in-residences, working with children at Nelson Mandela and Saratoga Elementary Schools, teaching the next generation the art of quilting and storytelling.
Butler was a 2017 Fellow at The Union for Contemporary Art and participated in the 2018-19 Kent Bellows Artist Mentoring Program and Omaha’s WhyArts Artist-in-Residence program. Butler lectures and teaches at Metropolitan Community College, and led workshops at the 2018 National African American Quilt Convention in Lawrence, Kansas, where she had two quilts featured.
Butler’s work has been widely exhibited, including the 2020 Citylight Arts Project, the Durham Western Heritage Museum, the 2018-2019 Thread exhibition at the Museum of Nebraska Arts, and the Film Streams (Dundee, Omaha) permanent gallery collection. In 2018 Butler presented a solo quilt exhibition at the Burgwin Wright House Museum (Wilmington, North Carolina). Her work was featured in the group exhibitions Yours For Race and Country: Reflections on the Life of Colonel Charles Young (National Afro-American Museum, 2019) and Visioning Human Rights: Quilting in the New Millennium (Fitton Center for Creative Arts, 2018).
More Info: Instagram @quilterpreneur / celestebutlerart.com
Pamela Conyers-Hinson
Pamela is an award-winning artist. She holds a Master of Arts in Teaching, Master in Organizational Leadership, and a Bachelor of Art in Studio Art. She is a classically trained sculptor using the lost wax method for bronze casting and the traditional methods for stone carving. Pamela is interested in sustainability within the arts. This is evident by her use of experimental natural mediums. She received the Council of American Art Society Inc, Award for Excellence in Representational Sculpture. She has been an artist in residence throughout Nebraska and a 2018 Fellow at The Union for Contemporary Art in Omaha, NE, where she began the first iteration of a new aspect of her practice. She is a member of the National Association of Women Artist New York Chapter. Pamela has traveled across Nebraska with exhibitions from the Sheldon Museum of Art to teach art in rural communities. Hinson has been a teaching artist for Joslyn Art Museum and for After School programs that focus on underserved populations. She has exhibited artwork in New York, Illinois, and Virginia. In 2018, she published a book of recent artwork focusing on capturing ancestral facial features titled “Expressions of Black Heritage Through 50 Faces.”
About the Design: My designs focus on the natural aesthetics of women. It looks at not only the vibrant beauty of women, but also the inherited cultural beauty that women bring into this world. This is my way of celebrating beauty through color and shapes.
More Info: Instagram @conyershinson / conyershinsonart.com
Dan Crane
Dan Crane is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Omaha, Nebraska. In 2009 Crane earned his BFA in Printmaking from the Kansas City Art Institute. Since then, he has participated in solo and group exhibitions in and around the Midwest. Crane has also been offered fellowship, grant, and collaboration opportunities from many organizations including: The Union for Contemporary Art, The Joslyn Art Museum, The University of Nebraska in Omaha, Kent Bellows Studio, Kaneko, Film Streams, Amplify Arts, and The Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts.
About the Design: The specific colors, shapes, and characters in this design are an amalgamation of past and recent activities and experiences. Old sketch book entries, one-off smart phone screen shots, childhood toys, last week’s breakfast, all make appearances in these designs. The sort of free form design/art approach which mixes rough, gestural, scribbly lines with perfectly vectored, crisp, clean color and shape create a magic that for me proclaims variety, diversity, togetherness, and unity.
More Info: Instagram @diego4twondo / dancranesrealbusiness.bigcartel.com
Tyler Emery
I am an artist based out of Omaha. The things I strive for in my work are bold, bright and vibrant colors. I often incorporate eyes, lips and facial features into my work. Eyes are the only interpretation to our visual world, as lips are our only interpretation to the verbal world. These are the tools we use to connect with each other, When I paint I feel the need to express. I am also very influenced by pattern work, such as repetitive dots and lines.
More Info: Facebook and Instagram @_Tyler_Emery
Linda M. García
Linda M. García is a Mexican American Chicana artist, who has been dedicated for over 40 years creating, teaching and exhibiting Mexican/Latino folk and indigenous arts and traditional culture across Nebraska. Throughout the years, Linda has consistently devoted time and energy though workshops, exhibits, and lectures to share and celebrate Mexican customs, history, and art forms with the Omaha community. Linda is a big proponent of inclusion and works to promote harmony, and understanding though Mexican/Latino folk and indigenous arts, and traditional culture while inspiring the general public.
Among the numerous pursuits encompassed in educating others on Mexican culture, Linda is a Storyteller and has an extensive biography which includes poetry, literature, and the humanities. She’s a multi-faceted artist and has used her Indigenous heritage and her art as a catalyst to accomplish her goals, while supporting others, so they may do the same.
About the Design: This design for ORBT is inspired by “papel picado” which is cut paper designs.
More Info: Facebook https://www.facebook.com/linda.m.perez.10
Rebecca Harrison
Rebecca Harrison is a co-director of A Midsummer’s Mural, a 20 year old Omaha based mural company. She graduated from the University of Nebraska Omaha with a Bachelor’s in Art History. She is a founding member of the South Omaha Mural Project, which has produced ten large scale community murals about different neighborhoods and groups in South Omaha. She has been an arts educator for five years. She taught ceramics, painting, printmaking, preschool art, and open studio classes to students of all ages at the Salvation Army Kroc Center. Rebecca is on the Artists in Schools and Communities Roster for the Nebraska Arts Council and plans to conduct art workshops across the State.
About the Design: This design is inspired by the visual symmetry of a map of Omaha and the cellular structure of plants. I enjoy thinking of our cities as living organisms, with each cell performing a specific function that are all essential.
More Info: Instagram @Rebecca.midsummer
Betni Kalk
Bethany “Betni” Kalk is an artist and designer. She grew up in Papua New Guinea and attended high school, college and graduate school in the U.S. She studied graphic design, painting, and drawing. When not teaching, she explores the natural landscapes of other countries, and visits different regions of the U.S. to and from artist residencies. She has exhibited in numerous locations including Milwaukee, Minneapolis, and Omaha. She has received grants and residencies around the U.S. including Sitka Center and San Juan National Forest. She currently lives in Omaha, NE with her partner and children where she teaches design at Creighton University.
About the Designs: “Wildflowers of NE” is a celebration of wildflowers and insects from Nebraska. The drawings feature bright backgrounds that can be changed. “Taifo Pattern” is based on observations of legs, antennae, and wings of large cricket-like insects that live mostly in coconut trees. The drawings were repeated to create this pattern with overlapping forms.
More Info: Instagram @betni / b-e-t-n-i.com/
Anthony Peña
Anthony is a native of Omaha, Nebraska. He is a self-taught artist who developed and patterned his art style from comic books. Anthony later studied fine arts when he attended University of Nebraska at Omaha. Art has always been apart of his life. He loves drawing people, illustrations and logos. His recent artwork called “HOPE” went viral was turned into a mural.
About the Design: “Up In The Air” inspired by my daydreams and it depicts people without a care in the world enjoying a moment of escapism. As a Metro Bus Operator this design is dear to my heart.
More Info: Instagram @1blackant
Dany Reyes
Dany Reyes is an Omaha-based visual artist influenced by graffiti, pop culture and color theory. Reyes was born in El Salvador San Salvador, raised in Los Angeles and moved to Omaha at 15 years old in the year 2000. Reyes is a self taught artist who works primarily in spray paint and acrylics. He’s painted professionally since September 2018. His work is frequently on display at Elva’s gallery on Vinton Street in Omaha Nebraska. Reyes grew up on Marvel comic books and cartoons. The bold art styles and expressive characters caught his attention as a shy, immigrant kid learning about this new country.
Years later, they still capture his attention as Reyes builds faces out of swaths of color or let’s paint splatter across the thick black strokes outlining a pop culture icon. For Reyes, painting is freedom. For a long time he hadn’t felt that. After high school he worked blue collar jobs because as a noncitizen, art school didn’t seem possible. Then, as a father and husband in his mid-30’s, he decided to give it a shot. Since then his commissions have sold well locally and nationally as Reyes continues to build out his studio and develop his style.
More info: @artistdanyreyes / danyreyes.com
Sarah Rowe
Sarah Rowe is a multimedia and performance artist in Omaha, NE. Rowe’s participatory work is a call to action, confronting issues of identity and exploitation of nature. Her work re-imagines traditional Native American symbology to fit the narrative of today’s cultural landscape. Drawing from skewed imagery in historic texts, in conjunction with images from Lakota winter counts, Rowe projects her vision and experience into the mix with an offbeat enchantment. Rowe’s imagined landscapes are bold and vibrant, containing a shape-shifting bestiary of tales both familiar and strange. Recent exhibitions include a solo show, Nebraska Now, at MONA (Kearney, NE); Art Seen: A Juried Exhibition of Artists from Omaha to Lincoln, Joslyn Art Museum (Omaha, NE); and Monarchs: Brown and Native Contemporary Artists in the Path of the Butterfly, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts (Omaha, NE). Rowe holds a BA in Studio Art from Webster University, studying in St. Louis, MO, and Vienna, Austria. Rowe is of Lakota and Ponca descent.
More Info: Instagram @lady.wink
Patty Talbert
Patty earned her BFA in Studio Art at UNO in 2001 and completed her summer training with MacArthur Award winner Debra Willis at the prestigious Smithsonian African American Museum of History and Culture. She was also trained in Batiking under the watchful eye of the talented late Jamaican artist Dawn Scott. These techniques are the foundation and inspiration of her more than 3 dozen exhibitions. Her honors include Visual Arts nominee for emerging artist in OEAA , NBC, WOWT featured broadcast on Neighborhood Affirmation Project, and featured guest on HeartlandFocus. Patty’s Neighborhood Affirmation Project has been a continuous project of love for herself and her community.
About the Design: Inspired by elements of batiking, this is an example of super imposing a pattern within a different pattern. In this composition there is a foreground and background that are joined by overlapping them together. My goal is to create a harmonious movement of patterns and geometric shapes and colors that forces the viewer’s eyes to move within the movements of the geometric shapes and colors.
More Info: Instagram @iampattytalbert64 / Pattysartomaha.com
Steve Tamayo
Steve Tamayo is a traditional Sicangu Lakota artist whose family originates from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. After graduating from High School in 1984, Tamayo enlisted in the US Army, serving in the 101st Airborne Division. After returning to Omaha in 1987, he studied the traditional arts of the Umonhon people under Howard Wolf. As a mentor, Wolf instilled in Tamayo a deep appreciation and knowledge of Umonhon art and culture. He learned the importance of traditional materials, construction and the history surrounding native artifacts and regalia. In 2000, Tamayo moved to the Rosebud Reservation, where he augmented his understanding of Northern Plains art; he earned his BFA from Sínte Gleska University in 2011 where he developed and taught the traditional arts program.
Tamayo currently leads study groups on his Reservation and travels to schools and museums throughout the country to study and teach historic methods of artifact construction and preservation. He is a regular consultant to the curatorial and conservation staff at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. He has been an artist-in-residence and cultural consultant with OPS and teaches Native American Art History at Metropolitan Community College. Tamayo’s honors include the 2014 NAC Governor’s Heritage Art Award for excellence in cultural artistic expression. Tamayo has exhibited at The National Museum of the American Indian, in Washington, DC, The Kaneko in Omaha, The Great Plains Museum in Lincoln, NE, the John G. Neihardt Center, and RNG Gallery in Council Bluffs, IA. Some of his most recent work includes buffalo robes for Willie Nelson and Neil Young and a tipi offered to President Obama from Bold Nebraska.
More Info: https://www.bluebirdculturalinitiative.org/
Weston Thomson
Weston holds a BFA degree from CSU Chico and has supported the arts for over 15 years through nonprofit and university work with youth and adults. He has helped produce over 40 public art projects and currently works as an independent artist at Chromatic Black Studio in Omaha.
About the Designs: “Eclipse” – Inspired by both the micro and macro structures found in nature and human-built environments, “Eclipse” melds a common mandala design found in plants with geometric tilings found in modern architecture. The focal point is a partial sun that draws the eye in and represents the energy source that all of our structures revolve around.
“Humans” – This mix of multicolor faces created through contour line drawing techniques visually collects a community of people, where each individual is unique in color and shape. My intention was to create an image that represents the diverse and beautiful community of Omaha.
More Info: Instagram @chromaticblackstudio / westonthomson.com
Sandra Williams
Sandra Williams is a visual artist that works across a broad range of mediums including cut paper, Community Art, murals and painting. Her work has been exhibited at SOFA New York, Ann Nathan Gallery in Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art in St. Louis, Missouri and National Amazon University in Puerto Maldonado, Peru. Her work is included in the Howard Tullman Collection, The Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland Oregon and several private collections. She has been an artist in residence at The Studios of Key West, Key West, Florida, BigCi (Bilpin International Ground for Creative Investigation, Australia) Arquetopia, Puebla, Mexico, Wayfarers, New York, New York, The Contemporary Crafts Museum in Portland, Oregon, The Cleveland Institute of Art in Cleveland, Ohio and with the Amazon Conservation Association in Madre de Dios, Peru. Recognition for her work in Community Arts includes a Mayor’s Art Award, ten Parents Association Awards for Contributions to Students, and two Hixson-Lied Awards for Outreach, Engagement and Service.
More Info: Instagram @sandwilliamsart / https://www.sandrawilliams-art.com/cutpaper
Hugo Zamorano
Hugo was born in Los Angeles, California. He began his path as an artist when his kindergarten teacher read A Very Hungry Caterpillar to the whole class. That is when he decided to be an artist. California is where he raised his first Pit Bull dog and where he discovered Graffiti Writing and Hip Hop. He now resides in South Omaha, Nebraska. Nebraska is where he further grew as an artist, received his BFA from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, met friends that became family, began boxing, raised his current Pit Bull, and met his fiancée.
Hugo has worked on many murals in Omaha, most notably as lead artist for the Mexican Community Mural and the Werner Park mural commission.
About the ORBT Design: My design is about nourishing the arts in youth and supporting their creativity as they grow up. This is represented by the roots and tree growing up from the girl’s drawing.
More Info: Instagram @juixer
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