2025 Artist-in-Residence

The Delaware Contemporary is pleased to announce our four accepted artists for the 2024-2025 Artist-In-Residence program: Geraldo Gonzalez, Oscar De Paz, Tracy Tse, Lucy West. These artists were selected for a fully-funded residency program to occupy a shared studio, receive one-to-one mentorship, and participate in professional development programming. The ARC 25 jurors include current communications and marketing manager and former Artist-in-Residence, Shefon Taylor, and DCAD professor Dr. Casey Smith.


Geraldo Gonzalez

Geraldo Gonzalez is a Puerto Rican American artist whose radiant, utopian visions of public transportation systems offer both social critique and personal catharsis. Based in Wilmington, Delaware, Gonzalez is widely recognized as “The King of Transit,” a title that speaks to both his encyclopedic knowledge of regional transit systems and the central role they play in his artwork. His multimedia practice, which includes colored pencil, acrylic paint, watercolor, photography, and video, is rooted in his lived experience traveling across the greater Delaware Valley, encompassing Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. With a signature palette of bright, rainbow-hued colors and dynamic patterning, his work celebrates the infrastructure of buses, trains, and transit stations while transforming them into metaphors for agency, belonging, and resistance, drawing from his Puerto Rican heritage.

 

Oscar De Paz

Oscar Eduardo de Paz is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores narrative, memory, and cultural identity through an inventive use of mixed media. Including collage, watercolor, casein, and colored pencils, his work is deeply rooted in his personal experiences and heritage. De Paz constructs layered visual stories that reflect on social justice, food accessibility, ritual, and the complexities of community life. Drawing inspiration from his Guatemalan family background and experiences growing up in Chicago, de Paz infuses his work with cultural references—from traditional patterns to foods that evoke memories of childhood and family rituals.

 

Tracy Tse

Tracy Tse is a multimedia sculpture artist from South Jersey whose work draws from her Chinese heritage, family history, and a lifelong relationship with materials. Rooted in hands-on craftsmanship and guided by an experimental spirit, her current practice explores the intersection of cultural memory, material transformation, and intuitive making. Through sculpture and textiles, Tse investigates how overlooked everyday materials, like red plastic string, can carry stories of labor, resilience, and personal identity. Her work reflects a balance of technical precision, material curiosity, and cultural introspection anchored in a deep respect for process, tradition, and community.


 

Lucy West

Lucy H West is a Philadelphia-based artist whose practice spans painting, sculpture, video, and mixed media. After living in Philadelphia for over seven years, she has deeply rooted her artistic career in the city’s vibrant creative community. Lucy’s journey as an artist formally began during her undergraduate years at Dickinson College in Central Pennsylvania, a liberal arts school where she initially explored a variety of academic paths before fully committing to art. Thematically, Lucy’s work centers on human consciousness, mindfulness, and spirituality. Drawing inspiration from her meditation practice, her art explores the expression of feelings, sensations, and moments of presence.