A commemorative sculpture for the memories of the queer and BIPOC community, nationally, locally and within the artist's experience. 

Dance in Place | 12' x 10' x 6' | Aluminum and Steel | 2025 

Composite Digital Image | Dimensions Vary | Site of Photograph: Passage des Panoramas, Paris, France

Notes on Dancer:
Born in 2001 in Kankan, Guinea (Conakry), Karim Sylla began dancing at the age of eight in the streets of his hometown. In 2014, he left his family, who opposed his dancing, and relocated to Bissau in 2016. There, he joined the Nétos de Bandim dance troupe, traveling with the group to Senegal and Portugal before moving to Paris in 2017. As the troupe’s lead dancer, Sylla’s pose informed one of the figures in Dance in Place.

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The poses are drawn from the artist’s photographs of dancers in DC’s Capitol Pride Parade and others from Nétos de Bandim in Paris, France. 

Reference images that informed the figures were taken in DC the morning following widespread media coverage of the Pulse Nightclub shooting on June 12, 2016, in Orlando, Florida. Additional visual references in the sculpture include motifs drawn from a dress Angela Davis wore during the trials concerning her alleged involvement with the Soledad Brothers, an encoded representation of O’Shae Sibley, and a site-specific nod to Jean Diot and Bruno Lenoir, who were executed in the 4e arrondissement of 18th century Paris for homosexuality. 

Templates for the clothing panels were supplied as blank template coloring books for workshop participants to add various designs. Over 3 dozen designs were created by participants ages 7 and up, primarily in workshops organized in 2025 by the artist with Vermont organizations such as the Education Justice Coalition, Burlington City and Lake, and the Clemmons Family Farm.

Dance in Place Figure | 6' x 3' x 2" | Aluminum | 2025 

The Vermont Queer Archives contributed source material in the form of print graphics, including lettering from 1970s posters and ephemera from 135 Pearl’s, an iconic LGBTQ+ bar and queer performance space. The text "Gay Dance" is redesigned as a wispy offset red panel for the pants.  

An ode to 135 Pearl's, an iconic gay bar from the late 20th century, is clutched between two fingers of the Unity Player. The text comes from a poster design from University of Vermont's 1974 Gay Student Union,

I was invited by the Clemmons Family Farm to present and give a workshop for participant designs for the various panels of the artwork. The Clemmons Family Farm in Shelburne, Vermont, is a multigenerational Black-owned farm that serves as a community-centered space to connect cultural history, land stewardship, and racial equity. Artists often collaborate with the farm through community-centered, interdisciplinary work that bridges agriculture, education, and creative expression.

The sculpture features designs by students from the 14th session of Burlington City & Lake. Burlington City & Lake and Education Justice Coalition are two of the community-led alliances that participated during the spring of 2025. Both non-profits bring together educators, youth, artists, and organizers to address systemic inequities through advocacy, public programming, and place-based initiatives connected to Lake Champlain.

"Dance in Place" is a large-scale outdoor figurative sculpture fabricated from aluminum cut panel (3/8 and 3/4-inch) and rolled steel pipe (2-1/2 and 5-inch). The piece features silhouettes of seven dancers interwoven into a dynamic composition atop a concrete platform. The sculpture's aluminum surfaces are offset by additional panels all fully finished in automotive-grade solvent paints and sealed with a 5-7 layers of clear coating for protection against UV, abrasion, and chemical exposure. 

Discerning Eye Review | Words by Mark Jenkins

Kojzar's conceptual drawings are keyed to human activity. Working in public spaces, the artist makes realistic pencil drawings that he deems finished whenever a stranger interrupts him. The arrested drawings are later embedded within thick white matting and placed within pastel-hued circular frames, as if to safely contain the tension inherent in the process.

The artist's strategy engages the lone observer -- an interloper and probably an outsider -- with the larger community. It also comments on the contemporary culture of suspicion and surveillance. Kojzar, who showed related work at IA&A at Hillyer in 2019, calls his work "a very passive protest" in a video on his website. In a nation built for private vehicles, a pedestrian with a pencil is certainly a curiosity, and perhaps a threat.

"What's goin on, man, we're just curious what yer drawin'," at the Capitol

2025

Drawings on paper with audio recording

12" x 12"

time til interaction = 93 minutes

For this series, Kojzar draws his public surroundings until a stranger interrupts him, thus marking the drawing complete. In each title, the artist takes a notable phrase overheard, the location in which it takes place and the time until the interruption. Originating from an anti-terrorist policy that specifies sketching in public as 'suspicious activity', Kojzar accesses the outside world by being in a shared public space.  Accompanying the Drawing in Public Series is Recorded Interactions, which consists of audio taken from these exchanges, at times reinterpreted through an AI language bot | Jordan Horton, Curator Statement

"peux-je le voir?" in Cannes. 

 2020 

Drawing on paper under artist-framed acrylic in wood
18 inches in diameter
time ‘til interaction = 72 minutes

"He's a fucking asshole!" in Burlington, VT.  

2022 

Drawing on paper under artist-framed acrylic in wood
18 inches in diameter
time ‘til interaction = 60 minutes

"is that freehand?" in New Haven, CT. 

 2024 

Drawing on paper under artist-framed acrylic in wood
18 inches in diameter
time ‘til interaction = 99 minutes

"- - à quoi t’as fait? Je t'ai vu tout à l'heure," in Paris. 

2019

Drawing on paper under artist-framed acrylic in wood
18 inches in diameter
time ‘til interaction = 108 minutes

“UAW picket line,” in Detroit.

2019

Drawing on paper under artist-framed acrylic in wood
18 inches in diameter
time ‘til interaction = n/a

“T'as pas vu de portefeuille?” in Montreal. (time ‘til interaction = 134 minutes)
2024
Drawing on paper under artist-framed acrylic in wood
18 inches in diameter
time ‘til interaction = 134 minutes

“it’s my gift to gab,” in Washington DC. (detail)

2024  

Drawing on paper under artist-framed acrylic in wood
18 inches in diameter
time ‘til interaction = 114 minutes
 

Recorded Interactions — 2024 — Cassette Audio Player with Tape — 50-minute double-sided cassette tape

Accompanying the Drawing in Public Series is Recorded Interactions, which consist of audio taken from these exchanges, at times reinterpreted through an AI language bot. 

Interview with Dr. Howard Phillip Venable 

Digital Commons Site (Washington University Medical Center Desegregation History Project) 

1 hour and 16 minutes

Dr. Howard Phillip Venable grew up in Windsor, Ontario and trained as an ophthalmologist. In his oral history, he speaks about confronting segregation in both hospitals and housing, describing how discrimination shaped his work and life. Dr. Venable’s legacy includes establishing a student research fund to support Black medical scholars.

The documentation in this project portfolio shows "Home in Sight" prior to install in the process of fabrication. The dedication ceremony will take place in the late spring of 2026. The memorial plaza and surrounding park note the legal and social barriers that challenged the Venable family in the 1950s. 

Despite Dr. Venable’s socio-economic standing and accomplishments, even he could not escape the discriminatory housing market after the City of Creve Coeur forced him off his property under the guise of eminent domain laws. With the support of his family and colleagues, he fought the legal system to keep his home. His story inspires us to consider specific materials, symbols, and forms so the public can access, reflect upon, and recognize the history of Dr. H. Phillip Venable Memorial Park in Creve Coeur, Missouri.

- Studio Projects Collaboration with Oletha DeVane - 

Home in Sight | 12 x 12 x 12' | Steel and Glass | 2026 

“Home in Sight” symbolically tells the story of Dr. Howard Phillip Venable and his rise above obstructions of justice. An instrument known as the ophthalmic lens flipper has been multiplied to form a divided entry point, letting visitors stand between over two-hundred flippers and glass lenses, honoring Dr. Venable as a visionary medical doctor.  

Home in Sight | 12 x 12 x 12' | Steel and Glass | 2026 

"Home in Sight" prior to install in the process of fabrication. 

Glass rondels designed as an interpretation of Dr. Venable's house from newspaper clippings.  The lens flippers is oriented vertically to build the sculpture's structure

Home in Sight | 12 x 12 x 12' | Render with Plinth | 2026

My rendering for the final design to assemble the sculpture.

We’re here at Making Space Be More, a collaborative printmaking facility off Howard Street. This screenprint serves as a template for a steel medallion installed at the base of the Dr. Venable memorial, Home in Sight, to be installed outside St. Louis, Missouri. At Making Space Be More, the collaborative process brings together digital collage, painting, and drawing, incorporating materials ranging from photographs and newspaper clippings to found objects.

Ophthalmic lens flippers emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as essential tools in eye examinations. They consist of hinged frames holding paired corrective lenses, allowing eye doctors to rapidly “flip” between lenses while asking patients which view appears clearer. The project incorporates cast glass out of Tim McFadden's Baltimore glass studio. The molten glass naturally holds distorted irregularities.

Screenprint on handmade red pulp paper | approx. 26 x 26 inches | 2025

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Design for Home in Sight Medallion | 50 inches diameter | Cast Steel | 2026

The center medallion symbolizes the spiral pathway to home, reflecting life's journey.  Designs reference highways that cut through black neighborhoods nationwide as well as archived aerial maps of the park. It overlays distinct representations of the home with keys, fabric, and sweetgum balls embedded as patterns.   African fabrics illustrate a cultural relationship.  The lightest values indicate minimal cut, while the darkest values indicate the deepest groove.  A center black circle is an iris that fans into sweet gum balls.

Home in Sight sculpture outdoors | 2026 | prior to install

Excerpt from "If Work," Cohort Statement (Words by Christine Bootes) — 

Many artists in If Work, return to objects themselves as implicit sites of both play and work by foregrounding themes of process, materiality, experimentation, and performance. Others marshal forms such as the comic book or public sculpture to surface counter-histories of collective, collaborative labor. 

Though they embrace a range of conceptual tactics and media, what all share is a concern for the interactions between artmaking and the social, intellectual, and political systems in which art operates. Indeed, the debates articulated by Bryan-Wilson in Art Workers are germane to our contemporary era. Though their contours have changed, the unionization drives; ascendence of liberation movements; critiques of capitalism; and proposals for radically alternative modes of living remain relevant to the current climate.

2022–23 Cohort :Francesca Altamura \ Željka Blakšić aka Gita Blak \ Christine Bootes \ Gabrielle Figueroa \ Laura Genes \ Brett Ginsberg \ Kearra Amaya Gopee \ Annabelle Heckler \ Li-Ming Hu \ Chris Kojzar \  \ Jen Liu \ Naomi Lisiki \ Lily Moebes \ Kayla Weisdorf 

Curation: Laura Genes - Kiyoto Koseki | Miranda Samuels - Francesca Altamura

2023

Aluminum, foam board, wood, acrylic, mixed media

18 x 25 x 20 inches 

2023

Aluminum, foam board, wood, acrylic, mixed media

18 x 25 x 20 inches 

2025

Artist Rendering (finalist image for public art proposal)

Dimensions Vary 

2024

Aluminum, light, MDF, enamel, acrylic, mixed media

14 x 20 x 8 inches

2024

Aluminum, light, MDF, enamel, acrylic, mixed media

14 x 20 x 8 inches

2024

Aluminum, light, MDF, enamel, acrylic, mixed media

14 x 20 x 8 inches

2024 

Artist rendering (for final design document, prior to fabrication)

dimensions variable

2021

Digitized Drawing 

Dimensions vary

This artistic render hints at the architectural identity of such a space where enslaved  persons labored on John McDonogh's farm to harvest cash crops such as sugar cane and tobacco.  Realized for the McDonogh Memorial to Those Enslaved and Freed (Lead Artist, Oletha DeVane) 

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Displayed as part of  Dispersive Archives Vol. 2 
Friday, January 14 • 5-9pm | Ongoing through February 14
@ Eubie Blake Cultural Center, hosted by Waller Gallery

Featuring Artists: Nakeya Brown, Safiya Cheatham, Chris Kojzar, and Savannah Wood

January 14 – February 14, 2022
Opening Reception: Friday, January 14 from 5-9pm
Gallery Hours: Wednesday-Friday and Saturday 11-3pm

2023

Powder-coated steel panel with embossed text and etched illustration  

38 × 28 × 2 inches.

Location: Owings Mills, Maryland

Pick a brick, write a note, and place back on the ground.

This piece, Kojzar explained, “was to honor my great-great grandmother. It brings in the personal nature of where we stand today, where I stand, where she once stood, and how her history is only kept through the continuance of family. It is [about the] passing on to generations in the future.”  - - from BmoreArt "Virtual Reality and Cutting Edge Interactivity at Loyola’s Julio Gallery"

1850 was activated at the opening of Unrested as visitors picked up bricks and wrote messages prompted by phrases such as “Dear Ancestor,” “Dear Future Self,” and “Dear Future Generations.” The 272 bricks reference the hundreds of people the Jesuit community treated as chattel in order to fund their collegiate enterprise. The quilt atop the stacked bricks was made by the artist’s grandmother, three generations removed. The work is informed by Sonya Clark’s Edifice and Mortar.

2024

272 bricks, pens, and quilt 

8 feet diameter | 34 inches height

Pick a brick, write a note, and place back on the ground.

2024

272 bricks, pens, and quilt 

8 feet diameter | 34 inches height

Pick a brick, write a note, and place back on the ground.

2024

272 bricks, pens, and quilt 

8 feet diameter | 34 inches height

Pick a brick, write a note, and place back on the ground.

2024

272 bricks, pens, and quilt 

8 feet diameter | 34 inches height

Pick a brick, write a note, and place back on the ground.

Exhibition Dates: October 10 - 20, 2023
Francis Colburn Gallery

Solo exhibition of works from 2018-2023. Mixed media / moving image, sculpture, and extended reality artwork. Visual narratives explore broader themes of black / queer experience intertwined in historical archive.

2023

mixed media 

98” x 46”

I wait to see him. A rather important man. Slouch in leather chairs. Four dudes sit and speak. Broken french rolls off their tongues. Idle romantics. Two cops and a man. All wearing plainclothes, they talk. Money exchanged hands. I kept my head down. As a drunk man approached me. “You'll be fine,” he said. Step outside to smoke. And a friend comes from nowhere. Cigarette stories. Warm breeze hits my face. from public transportation. Quick glimpses. underclass adjacent. Parallel parking, I'm outside of a Whole Foods. Can't afford my spot.

2019

pen on vellum over artist framed light box.

68 x 44 inches

While Van der Weyde’s photograph of Sandow on his theatrical pedestal was the first in which he was posed to expose the size and solidity of his muscles, particularly his biceps, it was also the first in a long series of photographs of Sandow posed naked with a fig-leaf. The homoerotic connotations of Sandow’s stage performativity and his photography seemed to have been well recognized by homosexual communities. While there was a growing market amongst ‘young ladies’ for the hand-size, card-back cabinet photos supplied by Sarony, Steckel and Falk, a considerable number of their male mail-order subscribers seemed to have been homosexuals, particularly those in London where there was a growing subcultural network who exchanged photos of male nudes exuding Aestheticist homoeroticism, including Lord Alfred Douglas, Edmund Gosse, Andre ́ Raffalovich and John Addington Symonds.  (Brauer, Fae. Virilizing and Valorizing Homoeroticism: Eugen Sandow's Queering of Body Cultures Before and After the Wilde Trials. Visual Culture in Britain 18.1 (2017): 35-67).
 

2020

Wood Sculpture with Tablet

360° video | Duration: 10 minutes

16 x ¾ inches

Participants are invited to hold the work and look around. Audio sourced from interviews of a documentary produced by AFSCME (American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees).
 

Video for interactive sculpture

2023
Virtual Reality Environment, VR Headset
6 minutes, 34 seconds

Exploring a Monument Park brings Kojzar’s drawings and sculpture of "unclaimed scarves on signposts as are dreams caught in pages (I - III)" into room-scaled reality. Through the possibilities of virtual reality, Kojzar reimagines the gray graphite and aluminum of the drawings and diorama in the distance and the limitations of public art. While many displays of monuments and memorials fade into the background of one’s daily life, Exploring a Monument Park immerses the viewer in the possibilities of art integrated into a destination. The headset becomes a monument for public spaces that do not exist. 
 

2023
Virtual Reality Environment

The visualization first found inspiration from unrealized monument projects, interviews with Daniel Comegys and audio content referencing Veronica Tyler and activist Ms. Pauli Murray. Daniel Comegys trained at the Baltimore Institute of Musical Arts, a school founded in the 1940s to provide Black students access to music education that the segregated Peabody Conservatory then denied. Veronica Tyler was a Baltimore-born lyric soprano who rose to prominence in the 60s, performing on televised concerts like Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts. Pauline “Pauli” Murray  became a seminal figure in Civil Rights, feminist theory, and legal scholarship. S/he was a lawyer, author, poet, teacher, and Episcopal priest whose work helped expand legal protections against racial and gender discrimination.

2020
Video
9 minutes: 58 seconds

An ode to the journey of Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, whose story is recorded as arriving to Baltimore via New Orleans from Cuba, born in Haiti.

2020
Video
Duration: 9 minutes: 58 seconds

Short Biography: Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange (1784–1882), born in Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti), migrated through Cuba and New Orleans before settling in Baltimore, where in 1829 she co-founded the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the first Catholic religious order for women of African descent in the United States.

2023

walls fall down 

Gallery Talk

The Jewish Museum of Maryland invites visitors to "Next Generations: Turning the Page". I created the sculptures (colored acrylic building blocks, patterned textiles, and 3D printed architectural forms) and their pedestals, which hold designs from hand-drawn cartography adapted from the Sanborn public archive.  A room-scale map paired with an interactive augmented reality app is designed by JLS Gangwisch, directing oral histories from the museum's archive and publication "Generations".

2025

Silkscreen on fabric with white acrylic hangers  

 3 x 28 x 20 inches

Two patterned scarves hang from white acrylic hangers, each printed with silkscreened emblems and pin-inspired motifs. Rendered, then screenprinted in red on white fabric. The designs draw from objects such as papercuts, a Jews of Color pin, a gold Acorn pin, and other archival references. Draped over a pedestal, the textiles echo the visual language of memorabilia, connecting personal adornment to Maryland's broader histories of Jewish identity/labor in the department store and garment industries.

Links to referenced artwork and memorabilia:  

https://jewishmuseummd.catalogaccess.com/photos/68731

https://jewishmuseummd.catalogaccess.com/objects/12214

https://jewishmuseummd.catalogaccess.com/objects/11942

https://jewishmuseummd.catalogaccess.com/objects/4048

2025

3D print over vinyl-wrapped pedestal 

44 x 28 x 28 inches

2025

Acrylic cut-outs over vinyl-wrapped pedestal

50 x 28 x 28 inches

Sculptures at times refer to buildings reclaimed after mid-20th century white flight

2025

3D printed portico over vinyl-wrapped pedestal

50 x 28 x 28 inches

"Next Generations: Turning the Page (Migration)” is a conceptual reinterpretation of migration patterns of Jews in Baltimore. The exhibition reorients visuals found in the Museum's collections and its publication “Generations,” sourcing articles and objects to reveal issues like healthcare, leisure, activism, education, and architecture. This is a strikeWare Collective exhibition.   

There was particluar interest to research how Jewish migration mirrored and diverged from Black segregation throughout Baltimore in the 19th and 20th centuries, and more acutely, how Jewish land developers and businesses both challenged and reinforced discrimination.  Antero Pietila's 'Not in my Neighborhood' and Dara Horn’s “People Love Dead Jews” are just a couple nodes of research that were paired along with the Jewish Museum of Maryland’s “Generations” publication and their decades-long collection of artifacts.

2025

Acrylic cut-outs over vinyl-wrapped pedestal

49 x 28 x 28 inches

A bright blue acrylic silhouette of Baltimore's first Jewish hospital. 

2025

Digital Collage

Dimensions Vary

These works are based on historic Sanborn fire insurance maps, which are used as precise records of building footprints, zoning, and infrastructure. By wrapping the pedestal with the map, the sculpture is physically and conceptually placed within a specific site.

2025

Host: Jewish Museum of Maryland (JMM)
 

Topic: 

A history of the Generations publication and a panel discussion about the "Next Generations: Turning the Page" exhibition.
 

Speakers:
History: Deb Weiner (Historian & former Generations co-editor).
Curators: Rachel B. Gross, Zoe Friedman, Christopher Kojzar, Mollye Bendell (strikeWare Collective).
Moderator: Rebecca Uchill (Exhibition Advisor). 

2025

Visitors in the Gallery 

(photo credit for images: Sid Keiser)

2025

Graphite on Paper 

24" diameter 

This drawing communicates the Ark and the Dove’s original 1634 landing with three passengers: John Price, Mimus and Mathias de Sousa. The small boat in the foreground reflects Mathias de Sousa's position within the colony as the first documented person of African descent to live in colonial Maryland. Although he arrived with the founding expedition, historical documents fade him from record.

2023
Watercolor pencil on paper

34 x 28 inches 

This drawing explores the quotidian nature of travel and displacement. The sitters, artists Dieb Oroubah and Mohammed Salem Dighya, were both forced to flee in their homelands of Syria and Western Sahara, respectively. They pose with a tower finder, commonly placed in tourist destinations with origins from Norfolk, Connecticut. Here, Kojzar captures this scene as Oroubah and Dighya use this tower finder to view the Eiffel Tower in Paris where they currently reside. Parc des Buttes Chaumont wasn’t here (to see outside) reflects on the unspoken ways people and things find their way in a place. | Wall Text written by Jordan Horton, VisArts Curator

2024
Rasterized Digital Print with Ink Wash
28 x 20 inches

Home in site (I) references the civil rights sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois's infographic drawings. Using the original listings of assessed Black American wealth in Georgia from the 1900s, I focus on six prominent cases in the U.S. from the Civil War onward. This work is a reflection on the concept of reparative justice rather than traditional reparations. The overlay of "eye flippers" serve as a symbol for Black ophthalmologist Howard Phillip Venable, whose relatives sought to reclaim his land after many years. It's the representation for the sculpture "Home in Sight".

2023

Six monotype prints with ink wash and marker
28 x 20 inches

1890, the title's piece references the year that civil rights sociologist WEB Dubois compiled data for his infographic drawings, which he presented at the Paris Exposition Universelle | Displayed at the Unrested Exhibition at Julio Fine Arts Gallery, Loyola University

2023
Monotypes with AR Digital App 
28 x 20 inches

Custom app to use tablet revealing original 1890 WEB Dubois infographics associated with monotype design.

2023
Monotype Print with Ink Wash and Marker
28 x 20 inches

2023
Monotype Print with Ink Wash and Marker
28 x 20 inches

2025
pulp painting on handmade paper
52" x 44"

2023

Graphite on paper

34 x 30 inches

2023

Graphite on paper

34 x 30 inches

In this work, a King James Version of the Bible is cut as a gesture towards the omissions of “Parts of the Holy Bible, selected for the use of the Negro Slaves, in the British West-India Islands,” which was originally published in 1807. Unlike other missionary bibles, the Slave Bible’s British publishers deliberately removed almost 90 percent of the book, essentially any passage that could inspire hope for liberation.

Omission was first performed in a former Methodist Church, then displayed as video at the "Renovations" exhibition at Baltimore's Carroll Mansion. The mangled book was on display as two sections (what was and wasn’t omitted from the slave bible) for visitors to leaf through. The third iteration called in gallery visitors to participate in removing passages during the opening reception of "Unrested" at Loyola University's Julio Fine Arts Gallery.

2019 Book with AR Component 

24 x 12 inches 

Total Runtime – 2 hours : 42 minutes 

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This piece responds to research that deals with a multi-layered overlap between Christianity, slavery, and education. On display for 'Renovations'

2023

2 Bibles, X-acto knives  

An invitation for others to take part in the cutting | Unrested exhibition at the Julio Fine Arts Gallery

2019 Book with AR Component 

24 x 12 inches 

Total Runtime – 2 hours : 42 minutes 

Performance

Excerpt Runtime: approx 10 minutes

Performance Duration 2 hours : 42 minutes

2019

2019 Book with AR Component 

24 x 12 inches 

Total Runtime – 2 hours : 42 minutes