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Meet the Juror
Stephanie James is a curator of modern and contemporary art with a focus on art of the African Diaspora. She holds an MA in art history from Wayne State University and a BFA in drawing, along with teaching certification, from Eastern Michigan University. She is the Curator and Collection Educator for the Mott-Warsh Collection—one of the largest privately owned collections of African American art in the United States. Prior to her work with the Mott-Warsh Collection, she worked at the Detroit Institute of Arts for nearly 16 years, serving as assistant curator of the General Motors Center for African American Art (2002-2009) and in various appointments in the museum’s education department (1993-2002). Additionally, she has contracted with Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of African American History and Culture as a member of their “Save Our African American Treasures” team of curators and conservators. Ms. James has organized numerous exhibitions, most recently “The Essential Self: Meditations on the Politics of Identity” at the Detroit Artists Market (2015). She is a frequent participant in educational programming on the arts and has authored several essays on contemporary American artists.