ARTIST TALK: STORM ASCHER & PHYLLIS HOLLIS

Storm Ascher is an independent curator, writer, and founder of Superposition Gallery and The Hamptons Black Arts Council. She has a BFA in Visual & Critical Studies from the School of Visual Arts (2018), an MA in Art Business from Sotheby’s Institute and Claremont Graduate University (2020), and is a Forbes 30 Under 30 Honoree for Art & Style 2022.

Storm founded Superposition Gallery in August 2018. She started her curatorial projects with a mission to subvert gentrification tactics used in urban development through art galleries. She refers to her gallery as “a socially conscious approach to contemporary art with a focus on borrowed space”. Superposition Gallery has drawn in exhibition participation from over 100 artists of different cultural backgrounds and multidisciplinary practices, such as Layo Bright, MR. WASH, Derrick Adams, Ludovic Nkoth, Jessica Taylor Bellamy, Tariku Shiferaw, Ambrose Rhapsody Murray, Nate Lewis, Marcus Leslie Singleton, Helina Metaferia, and Muna Malik. By starting a nomadic gallery model without a brick and mortar address, the gallery has continued to grow their community outreach through site specific iterations of borrowed space in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and internationally. Storm has fostered partnerships with various institutions and brands who look to the Superposition program for partnership activations— launching spaces around the world.

In 2023, Storm founded the Hamptons Black Arts Council—a 501(c)3 non profit charitable organization based in New York State — which is dedicated to upholding the legacy of Black art institutions on the East End of Long Island. Storm’s development of the Hamptons Black Arts Council focuses on Advocacy, Acquisition Development, and Infrastructure and Operations. Storm’s curatorial work and community involvement through HBAC has increased awareness of Black art organizations through public programming, education, and networking; grown the contemporary collections of artwork by artists of diverse backgrounds through exhibitions and fundraising; and maintained their museum galleries and staff retention through fundraising. Recent exhibitions through The Hamptons Black Arts Council mission include Tariku Shiferaw’s first museum solo show Making Space: One of These Black Boys at the Southampton African American Museum, as well as Spectrum of Echoes, an exhibition in partnership with UBS which included works by Sanford Biggers, Tomashi Jackson, Che Lovelace and more.

Storm worked at various galleries and institutions prior to starting her own curatorial program and organizations, such as LAXART under Hamza Walker, David Lewis Gallery, Marciano Foundation, and Spruth Magers. She has curated for the Eastville Museum in Sag Harbor, Phillips New York, Phillips Los Angeles, Southampton African American Museum, UBS Global Art, and OOLITE Arts in Miami.

She is on the Advisory Board of Inversion Art, which invests in and stewards visual artists who are at an inflection point in their careers. She is also on the board of Rose House Residency, an artist incubator program in a Victorian home in Cobleskill, NY, and the Core Committee of The Circuit, a Black arts coalition. She is on the steering committee of the Art Basel Women’s Wealth Summit with Unlocked Foundation and UBS Women’s Wealth Segment, which has a mission to close the gender pay-gap across industries.

Storm was awarded the Alumni Scholarship award at The School of Visual Arts in 2018 for her thesis documentary and paper #gentrify2017 and delivered the valedictorian speech at her graduation from SVA at Radio City Music Hall, along with artists Maya Lin and Milton Glaser. She has contributed extensively as an independent writer and art critic to Cultured Magazine—most notably her profile of artist Wangechi Mutu and curator Claudia Schmuckli for their museum presentation at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. Other writing contributions include TiltWest, The Brilliance of the Color Black Through the Eyes of Art Collectors, Widewalls, Galerie Lelong, and more. She has been featured in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, W Magazine, Hyperallergic, CULTURED, Artsy, The Miami Times and others. She was recently named in The New Generation of Black Women Gallerists by Artsy and the Dan’s Papers Power List of the East End.

stormascher.com

Phyllis Hollis is currently an independent trustee of a NASDAQ traded REIT (DHC) and on non-profit boards of leading art organizations offering Finance, Investment, and Strategic Planning, and Digital Marketing expertise. She was previously the President/CEO of a boutique Broker-Dealer/ Investment bank.  

She has more than thirty years’ experience in the financial services industry. Hollis began her career in technology working for IBM as a Systems Engineer and later transitioned to the financial services industry working for Salomon Brothers in Mortgage Sales and Trading. In 1994, Hollis became a co-founder of the first TFI focused minority investment bank supported by Merrill Lynch, a strategic partner.

In early 2020, during the onset of the pandemic, Hollis established 'Cerebral Women Arts Talks', a podcast promoting underrepresented Artists and Art Professionals. 

She is an executive committee member of the MoMA Black Arts Council and previously a trustee of the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture and the School of Visual Art Alumni Society.

cerebralwomen.com