Baker Artist Portfolios

Mo Kessler (b. 1985) grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, and is now based in Baltimore, Maryland.
They were the Watson-Brown Southern Studies in Arts & Letters Fellow for 2023-2024. Mo showcased their work in solo exhibitions at Frostburg State University in Frostburg, Maryland, and at the University of South Carolina Upstate in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Their art has been exhibited across central Appalachia, the South, and the Midwest. Currently, they teach at the Maryland Institute College of Art and the University of South Carolina Upstate.

As a sculptor and installation artist, Mo is best known for work created using repetition and accessible craft traditions made of materials from thrift stores, craft aisles of box stores, and local hardware shops. Labor history, working-class craft traditions, material sustainability, and political theory influence Mo's work. They founded several community-based projects, including Shelter In Place (SiP), an online artist residency program for artists engaged in community organizing and activism. As a community organizer, Mo worked on campaigns against racial injustice, food insecurity, foreclosures, police brutality, and mountain-top removal.

They earned a BFA in Sculpture from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2007 and an MFA in Studio Art from Western Carolina University in 2021. Currently, Mo is working on a series inspired by research into populist movements from the 1870s to the 1940s.