Déesse is an artist and educator whose work has been supported by national and international residencies, including the Bogliasco Foundation (Italy), Yaddo (NY), c.r.e.t.a. rome (Italy), the Hungarian Multicultural Center (Hungary), Cholamandal Artists Village (India), Can Serrat (Spain), and Baldwin for the Arts (NY). She has received several awards, such as Best of Show at the Migrations Film Festival (The Front, New Orleans) and the Yaddo Donald and Genie Rice Filmmaker Residency Grant. In 2025, she was nominated for the Anonymous Was A Woman award (pending). Her work has been featured in Art in America, the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), and Boston Art Review.
She has exhibited her work—both solo and collaboratively—across the Middle East, Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Recent exhibitions include the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art (IN), Black Mountain College Museum & Art Center (NC), Printed Matter, Inc. (NY), Mahmoud Darwish Museum (Palestine), Bogotá Arte Contemporaneo Gallery (Colombia), Galerie Nord (Germany), Greatmore Studios (South Africa), Total Arts Gallery and the Cultural Foundation (UAE), the Katonah Museum of Art (NY), Gallery 263 (MA), and the B2 Center for Media, Arts & Performance at the Atlas Institute (CO).
Déesse comes to AUR from Tufts University’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA), where she serves as Professor of the Practice (Drawing & Painting) and Chair of Drawing and Painting. Her teaching and leadership experience, coupled with a globally recognized interdisciplinary approach, will advance AUR’s studio curriculum and the program’s Rome-based experiential model.
Déesse’s work - rooted in what she terms Afrobaroque and digital Vodunism (merging traditional and digital media, while drawing on Afrofuturism and the global Baroque) - moves across painting, drawing, site-specific installation, performance, experimental sound, digital printmaking, and film. Her practice examines human and post-human identities, the future of race and sexuality, and the affective power of images and objects.
At AUR, Déesse leads program development across drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture, and expanded media, strengthening pathways that connect studio coursework with Rome’s museums, contemporary art spaces, and artisan networks.