President
Research Director
Artist, Curator, Worker

Val uses their experience and knowledge application of a nonbinary mixed race mixed media artist and researcher to orient the work done in research and art in a collective lens. Born and raised in Seattle and the Snoqualmie Valley, Val’s focus leans toward confronting traditions and methodologies of how we learn about each other and our environment, and how we define that environment, that other.

Vice President
Contemporary, Conceptual Artist
Putoh Performance Artist

Xavier Lopez is a Latinx, contemporary, conceptual artist, who received his MFA from the University of California, Davis where he created the theoretical/artistic thesis of the "Soft Cyborg” and alongside Cuban Butoh artist, Katherine Adamenko, formed the performance artform dubbed “Putoh.” As a Latinofuturist he is part of a young group of artists who are seeking to move beyond genre, mixing sculpture, performance, theory, painting, and anything else they can get their hands on to create something exciting and new. He is part of a new breed of Latinx artists for whom artmaking, while still personal and autobiographical in the broadest sense, eschews the obvious tropes of masculinity, hegemony, and race with very little regard for the overbearing cultural history that has proven to be overpowering for so many artists of this age.

Chair
Artist, Activist and Educator


Since learning Photoshop v. 1.5, Peter has been interested in connecting under-represented communities with digital tools so their voices may be broadcast. He has been involved with large scale video projections, documentary films, animations, guerrilla art actions, and community building since the 90s.
Peter Bill's award winning paint and video landscapes have shown in such diverse venues as The Kitchen(NYC), the Henry Art Gallery(Seattle), FILE Festival(São Paulo, Brazil), and other international venues. He continues in his Oil paintings and video work to weave the painterly with the digital, pixels and paint, indigo and 191970 blue. He envisioned and realized the first time-lapse film festival in North America, the Gila Timelapse Film Festival and has curated and directed shows on three continents. "Art must be realized on the streets, as an agent of change and progress."

Secretary
Artist, Traveler


Being a newcomer, I’m learning and appreciating CoCA’s rich past and its role and purpose today. To me, its role feels both fixed and fluid. I have witnessed that it has strong, deep-rooted underlying values of community and connection. This is demonstrated by the commitment of its current leadership to a world that considers all people. Yet, I have also felt its fluidity: CoCA feels interwoven with the ever-expanding fabric of the community it is comprised of, constantly evolving in tandem with the community’s evolution. CoCA feels to me like a gallery for the people. This is an institution that showcases common, shared human experiences, and equally disseminates unique and diverse experiences that are crucial to learn in order to understand one another in a community. Part of strong communities is members being visible to one another and being understood by one another. Another part of community is connecting members and bridging divides, especially in our world today which languishes in division. “Contemporary” means now. I feel that CoCA exists to share art that reflects our realities today. It is a place to learn, discuss, collectivize, mobilize and unify for a better world. It is a place to celebrate what we are going through, and what another is going through. This is not only the Center on Contemporary Art, but also a hub for folks to come center on contemporary art. CoCA provides a nucleic space where conversations can begin.

Treasurer
Long Time CoCA Volunteer

As an organization, COCA has been painting a bridge. COCA itself has endured the process of continuous improvement, accomplishments, growth, support, promotion of contemporary art, and artists; while sustaining defeat, failures and near collapse of the organization. COCA stands out from the rest through its unapologetic and stoic fearlessness in trying new and different things. Whether facing defeat or success COCA strives to fulfill its mission of advancement, development, and understanding of contemporary art while cultivating meaningful partnerships with local and international artists.

Board of Directors
ShowWalls Program Manager


CoCA has a responsibility to extrapolate the extraordinary, to uplift the minority, and increase accessibility to artists working on rising up in the contemporary arts field. I believe CoCA is a unique and historic center that deserves to demonstrate its experience rich voice by the city, the community, its members, and its visitors. I hope to continue to see its programs and events continue to grow throughout the city.

Board of Directors
Artist, Composer, Musician


Antoine has been heavily involved in the Seattle music scene since the early 2010s. He's a composer who performs solo under the name sous chef, as well as a founding member of sunking, High Pulp, and Dentaru no Tsuba. Through these projects and more, he's been lucky enough to perform multiple times on KEXP, get featured in the New York Times, and travel the world playing music. He's scored a few feature films as well as many shorts, and over the last 5 or so years has extended his reach into other artistic mediums thanks to collaborations with artists such as Tsubasa Kato (Tokyo) and most recently with Avee Oabel as a part of a CoCA open call. In that way CoCA has already been formative to his experience in the contemporary art world and he is excited to discover new ways the skills he's gained over the last few decades in other fields can help and bennefit CoCA artists and the greater CoCA community. 

Board of Directors
Actor, Artist, Musician


Jim, grew up in Edmonds, Washington. He is mentored by Ukrainian-American illustrator and sculptor, Alex Chubotin. He participated in Art Against Racism: Memorial. Monument. Movement Virtual Exhibition in 2021 and the Jim Crow Must Go! Call for Action at CoCA in 2023. He also was in the exhibition, "Total F*cking Chaos," at The Method gallery in 2025. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature from the University of Washington. He studied acting under the UW Master's Degree holder in Directing, Aaron Clements-Levin and has performed in theatre and film throughout the Pacific Northwest. Jim's art is informed by music as a rock drummer and Afro-Cuban percussionist. His art is also informed by his passion for political protest art, Theatre of the Absurd, art and technology and conceptual art ideas. He lives and works at his studio in Edmonds, Washington.

Board of Directors
Creative Technologist
Interdisciplinary Artist  

Chienn was born and raised in Taiwan, immersed in classical music and dance. Drawing from a diverse skill set—spanning acting, dance, composition, screen scoring, singing, and multilingual interpretation—she shapes a distinct artistic voice.

Now based in Brooklyn, New York, Chienn pursued a master’s degree in the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and worked closely with NYU Steinhardt Screen Scoring Major. She explores digital media and artistic expression as tools to examine human emotions and perception, transforming introspective thoughts into meaningful gestures. Her projects and performances have been showcased in New York, Boston, Seattle (USA), Linz (Austria) at Ars Electronica, and Taipei (Taiwan).

Beyond academia, Chienn is an activist artist, embedding themes of sustainability, human rights, social justice, bodily autonomy, and gender equality into her work. Through creative expression, she seeks to spark dialogue and inspire meaningful change.

Art & Activism @chienntai;
WIP & Art @desigh.co

Board of Directors
Photographer
Producing Artist

George Vernon of Lacey, Washington, has been a professional photographer for more than 30 years, working almost exclusively in fashion, portrait and glamour photography. His photographs have earned him honors from the Lusty Lady and Lake Washington High School. His photographs have been used for advertisements for Fantasy Unlimited, Gothic Pride Seattle and Ant Gallery. Images have graced the pages of numerous magazines including, Arnazella Magazine, Voltage Magazine, The Seattle Scroll, /GAE•RÄJ/, and The Wave-KYYX Radio Magazine.

Visual Artist, Drummer/Percussionist, Composer, Filmmaker, Writer, Curator

Mario Layne Fabrizio’s work as a visual artist, drummer/per-cussionist, composer and writer has captivated audiences at The Whitney Museum, Jazz at Lincoln Center (Shanghai/NY), Panama Jazz Festival, Salzburg Jazz Festival, and the Olympic Sculpture Park, as well as in Europe and China. He has presented consistently across Seattle throughout the years at Base Camp, The Rainier Club, Axis, and MadArt, to name a few. Performances with pioneering musicians such as Cecil McBee, Claudio Roditi, and Joe Morris, premiering works including The Black Clown at the American Repertory Theater and Arturo O’Farrill’s piece Little Tiny Walls. London Jazz News calls him "ferocious but subtle." His compositions have been praised by The New York Times and AllMusic, while his visual art—described as "surreal, trippy dreamscapes" by Seattle Met—has earned commissions from National Sawdust and Seattle Art Museum. He's received awards from YoungArts, MASS MoCA, and the Foundation for Contemporary Art and graduated from New England Conservatory of Music in 2018, after studying with Billy Hart, Cecil McBee, Vijay Iyer (Harvard), and Jason Moran. Fabrizio embodies the ideal of freedom. His work is multimedia alchemy—paintings, sculptures, films, writing, philosophy, and music breathe with consciousness. In his paintings, he adds layers without removal, mirroring how each day informs the next. Like jazz improvisation, his pieces evolve endlessly, revealing hidden figures in perpetual treasure hunts.“This work is honest, it is love, it is spiritual, it is freedom. The jazz tradition taught me everything, to always trust sponta-neity, history, and the unknown. Magical things happen when you leap into mystery and transform the world through love and freedom."

International Multi-Disciplinary Artist, Poet, and Sociolinguist.

Gharbi was a founding multimedia artist of Tunisia’s National Puppet Theatre (OTEMA) and the country’s first salaried female puppet theatre artist before moving to the USA where she established herself and matured as a painter and a poet https://RajaaGharbi.com.

She is the first North African English language poet in the United States to have been published and awarded public funding for literary work. She was nominated in 2018 for Tunisia’s National Book Translation Award and in 2007 for Seattle’s Mayor’s Art Award and the Horace Mann Achievement Award. She has co-founded several Northwest art organizations and has curated art exhibitions including Seattle’s new City Hall inaugural exhibition Black Palette and has served as panelist/juror for national art fellowships and artist selections. Her paintings are numerous collections and books. Gharbi has undergraduate and graduate degrees in Applied Communication/Fine Art and Filmmaking from the Evergreen State College and Antioch University. She is a member of Academy of American Poets and PEN US, Lawyers for the Arts, Artists Trust and Onyx Seattle.