Authenticity as Illusion / Jake Brush + Kelli S Williams – March 6 – May 9, 2026
Join us for the latest collaboration between Rochester Contemporary Art Center (RoCo) and the iea. “Authenticity as Illusion” features two recent video artworks by Jake Brush (iea alum) and Kelli S Williams. The exhibition is curated by Myles Calvert, director of iea.
New media, particularly reality TV and queer culture, creates a chaotic, hyperreal digital identity crisis. The self is a fluid performance, warped by societal pressure and cultural appropriation, blurring the line between authentic and edited. Artists explore this, revealing that reality is fiercely crafted, not fixed, and that authenticity is an illusion.
Opening Reception: March 6, 6-9pm
Virtual Panel Discussion: March 26, 2026, 6pm
More information coming soon HERE.
Kelli Williams is an animator and visual artist. In her personal work, she uses stop-motion animation, photography, augmented reality, installation, and humor to create work that comments on society through the lens of social media and technology. She is an alumna of Morgan State University where she majored in Fine Art, with a concentration in photography. She received her Masters of Fine Arts from Columbus College of Art in Design. She is a professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally and has been featured in the Huffington Post, Columbus Live, Hyperallergic, Artnet, Baltimore magazine, and Netflix’s Cops and Robbers.
Jake Brush is an artist working in video, performance, sculpture and installation. Jake has participated in residency programs at Signal Culture (Owego, NY) and Shandaken: Storm King (New Windsor, NY). Jake was awarded the 2021 Van Lier Fellowship (Wave Hill, NY) and has shown work at DUPLEX gallery (NYC). In 2023 The Shed commissioned Jake Brush’s “Petpourri” , a video installation with sculptural elements. Jake’s work draws from junk television (MTV’s The Challenge, The Jerry Springer Show) and niche Long Island celebrities (a woman selling sex out of a hot dog truck, a man who is an eccentric pet store owner). These characters comedically rage through fantastical, and inescapable worlds, vying for power through never ending attention seeking.
Rochester Contemporary Art Center (RoCo) is a venue for the exchange of ideas and a not-for-profit 501(c)(3)
that was founded in 1977. As a center for thoughtful contemporary art, RoCo provides unique encounters for audiences and extraordinary opportunities for artists.
About the Curator
Myles Calvert was born in Collingwood, Ontario. He attended the University of Guelph with a focus in printmaking, before traveling to London, UK where he completed his MA in Printmaking, at Camberwell College of Art (University for the Arts, London). During this time, he worked for the National Portrait Gallery before moving to Hastings in East Sussex, to teach printmaking at Sussex Coast College (now East Sussex College) and become the Duty Manager of the newly established Jerwood Gallery (now Hastings Contemporary). Four formative years were spent as a Visiting Professor in Expanded Media at Alfred University (New York State College of Ceramics) and Alfred State College of Technology, teaching across print-based mediums including core foundations programs, senior advising, and graduate mentorship. Four additional years were spent at Winthrop University within the department of Fine Arts as an Associate Professor with a focus on printmaking and foundations courses. Recent residencies include Art Print Residence (Barcelona, Spain) and Proyecto’ace (Buenos Aires, Argentina), a lecture/workshop at PUCP (Pontificia Universidad Catòlica del Perú) in Lima, the Tamarind Institute (Albuquerque, NM), and the McColl Center (Charlotte, NC). Myles is currently the Director of the Institute for Electronic Arts at Alfred University, New York.
Image: Feed by Kelli S Williams