No Soy / Ana Agnabi


Jackie Milad is a Baltimore City-based artist whose mixed-media paintings and collages address the history and complexities of dispersed cultural heritage and multi-ethnic identity.

Artist Bio

No Soy / Ana Agnabi will be a suite of monumental paintings paired with a grouping of one hundred small to mid-size bronze, stone, and epoxy clay sculptures inspired by ancient Egyptian shabti figures. The sculptures will be displayed on tabletops and surrounded by wall mounted, vibrant colored cutout collage-paintings. Recently, Milad created two monumental collage-paintings and an accompanying bronze sculpture for a commission at the Baltimore Museum of Art. The grand scale and use of bronze as a material was a new experience for her and opened many ideas for experimentation. In Milad’s canvas works she collages together imagery from both her Egyptian and Honduran cultures, bridging past, present, and future (even myth), into one space. Her abstract pieces address the layers and complexities of diasporic identities and counter-hegemonic narratives. This further growth of sculptural components will echo symbols and figures culled from her existing works on canvas, inspired by actual ancient Egyptian and Meso-American artifacts held at the British Museum. The British Museum holds the largest collection of Egyptian antiquities outside of Egypt, with nearly 100,000 Ancient Egyptian objects. Each of Milad’s small sculptures will represent one thousand objects held in the British Museum’s collection. For the past couple of years, she has been utilizing their online collection and study room program to make drawn renditions of the antiquities in their collection, which she later sites in her work. By collaging these drawings and using them in canvas and sculptural work, Milad reinterprets and reclaims these historical objects of her heritage.


Award Year
2024
Status

In Progress

Artist with short hair and black shirt standing in the foreground with her hands on a table. The background is out of focus with colorful artworks on the wall.

Jackie Milad

Baltimore, Maryland

Jackie Milad received the Creative Capital Award in 2024. Jackie Milad is a Baltimore City-based artist whose mixed-media paintings and collages address the history and complexities of dispersed cultural heritage and multi-ethnic identity. She has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions nationally and internationally. Select exhibitions include Harvey B. Gantt Center (Charlotte, NC), The Walters Art Museum (Baltimore, MD), The Baltimore Museum of Art (Baltimore, MD), The Mint Museum (Charlotte, NC), Academy Art Museum (Easton, MD), Arthur Ross Gallery University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA), Weatherspoon Museum (Greensboro, NC), Museo de Arte de Mazatlan (Mazatlan, MX). Milad is a recipient of the Individual Artist Grant from Maryland State Arts Council. In 2019, she was a Robert W. Deutsch Foundation Ruby Grantee. In 2022, Jackie received the Municipal Art Society of Baltimore City Travel Prize to conduct in-depth research on the Egyptian antiquities held at the British Museum and Petrie Museums in London. Her work is included in several public collections, including Johns Hopkins University Sheridan Library, The Baltimore Museum of Art, Academy Art Museum, Robert W. Deutsch Foundation, and Pizzuti Collection. Milad received her BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, and her MFA from Towson University.