Southfield Public Arts Commission Presents Duality & Depth Art Exhibition and Opening Reception Featuring 12 Artists

Exhibition on display at Southfield City Hall through March 31, 2026

Mayor Kenson Siver and the Southfield Public Arts Commission will host the opening reception for Duality & Depth, a public art exhibition featuring 12 Michigan-based artists, on Thursday, January 15, from 6-8 p.m. at the Southfield City Hall Main Lobby, 26000 Evergreen Road. The event is free and open to the public.

The exhibition will remain on display in the City Hall Main Lobby through March 31, 2026, showcasing works by Cheryl Anne Barill, Robbie Best, Joe Cazeno III, Lulu Fall, Rebecca Hauschild, Donna Kennedy, Onzie Norman, Tzu Poré, Charlene Uresy, and Jami Young.

The Southfield Public Arts Commission curates quarterly exhibitions highlighting local artists. "The Southfield Public Arts Commission is committed to serving and supporting artists by providing a platform to showcase their work," said Delores Flagg, chairperson of the Southfield Public Arts Commission. "Duality & Depth hallmarks twelve impressive artists whose work connects emotional experience, creative energy, and artistic expression."

Cheryl Anne Barill

Website: https://www.CherylBarillArt.com

Cheryl Barill is a Michigan-based oil painter known for capturing the movement and energy of life through expressive brushwork, vivid color contrasts and the reflective interplay of metal leafing. Her intuitive yet representational style-often described as ethereal with touches of surrealism and fantasy-draws inspiration from live performers as well as artists such as Claude Monet, J.M.W. Turner and Gustav Klimt. Barill began working in oils in 2000 and, by 2016, had developed her signature approach to integrating metal leaf into her canvases, creating shimmering passages that have become a hallmark of her work. A native of Oak Park now living in West Bloomfield, Barill has built a lifelong, self-directed artistic practice while raising two children as a single parent. Barill's award winning paintings are widely exhibited and collected across the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada.

Robbie Best

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/robbiebestartist/

Robbie Best is an interdisciplinary artist and Wayne State University BFA graduate who transitioned to a full-time studio practice after a career in social work. Her work centers on visibility, shaped by an awareness that Black people have historically been rendered invisible in visual culture, and she is committed to portraying Black figures in a positive and empowered light. Although she began as a realist painter, Best soon embraced abstraction, deconstructing and simplifying the human form while preserving its rhythm and dynamic character. Her painterly style is known for its fluid, organic qualities, and she views abstraction as a source of personal and artistic freedom.

Working across a wide range of mediums but favoring oil, Best continually experiments with subject matter, tools, texture and color. Her practice is driven by curiosity and a desire to explore the unexpected, approaching each piece as an opportunity to discover something unplanned and authentic. Through ongoing exploration, her work reflects the fluid, playful and ever-evolving nature of creativity.

Joe Cazeno III

Website: https://www.jc3art.com/

Joe Cazeno III is an artist who works in abstract and photorealistic painting, illustration and mural design. He holds a B.A. in product design and has two decades of experience in lighting design, graphic design and fine art.

Cazeno draws inspiration from Black American music, sports, fashion and film, particularly from the 1980s and 1990s. He works mainly on canvas and in illustration, using materials such as acrylics, spray paint, paint pens and resin.

His work shifts in style based on what he wants to express, and he avoids defining a single artistic approach. Cazeno leaves his pieces open to interpretation and hopes to build toward international recognition as his career grows.

Lulu Fall

Website: https://www.lulufallabstracts.com/

Lulu Fall is a singer, award-winning songwriter, Broadway and television actor, and visual artist from Washington, DC. She began her visual art journey in 2020, finding solace in painting during the global pandemic. An artist with synesthesia, Fall's work is deeply influenced by the interplay of color, texture, and movement. For her, acrylic paint becomes a language-one that communicates the many dimensions of grief, loss, and trauma that have shaped her life. Fall's artwork not only supports healing for those navigating profound grief but also contributes to the normalization of emotional expression. Self-taught, she debuted her first solo exhibition, Lulu Fall: An Introduction to Hues, at Café 1923 in Hamtramck, MI, in February 2022. Her second solo exhibition, Grief: A Visual Diary, was presented at Congregation Detroit in January 2023. Her work has been featured in group exhibitions at Irwin House Gallery, Detroit Artists Market (DAM), Berkley Coffee, BasBlue, PARC Art Gallery, and the Torch of Wisdom Foundation's 2023 Silent Art Auction. In 2021, Fall launched her Etsy shop, Lulu Fall Abstracts, and select works are currently on display at the Kresge Foundation headquarters.

Rebecca Hauschild

Website: https://www.rebeccas.art

Rebecca Hauschild, a Michigan artist rooted in a multigenerational creative family, draws inspiration from a childhood surrounded by art, music and design. Her early exposure to color, light, texture and movement shaped a deep artistic sensibility that she later strengthened through college study, workshops and professional design work. She continues to view her education as an evolving process, blending new techniques into her oil paintings and plein air landscapes.

A defining moment in her artistic development came with an oil painting of cardinals created in memory of her mother, who died when Hauschild was a teenager. The piece marked a turning point in her skill and confidence, and she often describes the work as guided by her mother's enduring influence. The symbolism of the cardinal, long associated with loved ones who have passed, remains a meaningful thread in her creative journey.

Hauschild has earned awards in juried shows, taught community art classes and participated in numerous regional arts organizations, including the Detroit Society of Women Painters and the Birmingham Society of Women Painters. Her work spans landscapes, portraits, still life and a series of colorful farm animals, with plein air painting ranking among her greatest passions. Her originals and prints are available in galleries and artisan markets across Michigan, as well as through her online portfolio.

Donna Kennedy

Website: https://dkennedyart.wordpress.com/

Donna Kennedy is an artist raised in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan. She studied art at Michigan State University, Oakland Community College and Oakland University, and has spent the past decade continuing her training at the Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center in Birmingham, Michigan. She is a member of the National Conference of Artists Detroit, the Farmington Art Foundation, the Birmingham Society of Women Painters and The Artists of Colour in Ontario, Canada.

Known as a quiet artist in a storm of talent, Kennedy's work ranges from serene landscapes to detailed portraits and Venetian-style oil paintings, with a strong passion for acrylics at the center of her practice. She views art as the music of her heart and the rhythm of her soul, embracing each day as an opportunity to grow in technique, application and experience.

Onzie Norman

Website: https://onzienorman.com/

Onzie Deandre Norman, a self-taught mixed media painter and wood sculptor born in 1980, is based in Detroit, Michigan. His artistic foundation began with carpentry in high school and was strengthened through training at the Detroit Carpenters Apprenticeship School, where he graduated in 2003. That craftsmanship later became central to his creative identity.

Norman's artistic awakening came in 2013 after a powerful vision prompted him to begin drawing and eventually painting on wood. He now builds his own wooden canvases and works with a blend of paper, wood, spray paint, acrylic and resin, creating one-of-a-kind works that merge structural precision with expressive spontaneity. His art has been exhibited nationally, and his collectors include cultural leaders, public figures and institutions; in 2023, he was named a Gucci Changemaker and installed his mural "Botanical City" at Detroit's Siren Hotel.

His work is driven by a desire to reinterpret the world through layered mixed media, using hand-built surfaces to push beyond traditional boundaries. Norman's practice centers on themes of Black history, urban environments, still life and cultural identity, often explored through mixed media portraiture. He sees himself as a visual interpreter of life, translating stories, perspectives and traditions into evolving artistic narratives.

Tzu Pore

Website: https://www.tzupore.com/

Tzu Poré is a Detroit-based interdisciplinary artist whose work blends fine art, symbolic grooming and urban agriculture into what he describes as a living language of devotion. Drawing on ancestral knowledge and biophilic design, he transforms haircuts, canvases and gardens into practices of care and cultural memory. As founder of EMB Contemporary and creator of Hair Is The Garden We Wear, Poré develops ritual-based pedagogy and community-centered ecological work that advances a vision for beauty, lineage and cultural stewardship.

His recent recognition reflects the growing impact of his practice. His painting Last Pocket is featured in the Carr Center's exhibition Bridges Because of Them through Jan. 10, 2026, and he was invited by the University of Michigan's Institute for the Humanities to speak on his research. Poré has received his second Spirit of Detroit Award, and his scholarship is cited in architect Jahlil Stockard's thesis on biophilic urban design. Before fully committing to cultural work, he built a corporate career in design and print production, managing multimillion-dollar budgets and developing the strategic and logistical expertise that now informs his curatorial and artistic leadership.

Charlene Uresy

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/p/Art-by-Charlene-Uresy-100063128564088/

Charlene Uresy is an African Cuban American self-taught artist and photographer who was born in Chicago and lives in Detroit. She has traveled to Cuba regularly since 1999; her mother, a Cuban native, immigrated to the United States before the Cuban Revolution.

Uresy graduated from Eastern Michigan University and later retired from Detroit Public Schools. She serves on the board of the Mint Artist Guild and is a member of the National Conference of Artists, the Detroit Fine Arts Breakfast Club and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. She previously worked as a photographer for the MBAD African Bead Museum and has freelanced for the Michigan Chronicle and Source Magazine. Her hand-painted furniture appears in numerous private collections, and her exhibition history includes Northend Creators, the Detroit Fine Arts Breakfast Club at Swords Into Plowshares Peace Center, Souls of Black Folk, the Scarab Club, Rolling Out, the Delta Sigma Theta Art Auction, the Carr Center, Cutting-Edge-Artist, B.L.A.C. Magazine, Art Party: National Conference of Artists, the Palmer Park, Belle Isle and Funky Ferndale art fairs, the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit Fiber Works and Liberal Arts Gallery.

Jami Young

Website: https://jdominiqueart.square.site/

Jami Young is a native Detroiter, surrealist artist, and community auntie. Her work creates a bridge between the physical, the spiritual, and the psychological. Through bold, layered colors and textures, she draws viewers into spaces where ancestral wisdom, spirit and love are present. Spirit-taught (self-taught), Young honors the truth of collective legacy while exploring themes of ecological responsibility and psychological truth. Young serves on the board of SHE, supporting initiatives that empower women and girls through education, creativity, and community engagement. She has extensive experience in community arts and mediation, providing peer mediation and prejudice reduction training for community leaders and youth throughout Detroit. Much of her work is acrylic on canvas or wood. She continues to expand her practice with materials such as resin, thread, and alcohols ins. Each piece becomes both meditation and dialogue: a reflection of resilience, spirit, and the shared human experience. She began creating out of necessity, discovering art as a healing practice, and soon felt called to share the lessons gained along her journey. "It is my intention to reflect the circumstances that community and community creates hope."