Brandon Sines is a multidisciplinary artist and creator of Frank Ape, a character through whom he explores what it means to be human. Introduced on the streets of New York City in 2011, Frank began as a way for Sines to give form to personal ideas, emotions, and observations he found difficult to express directly. Neither fully human nor animal, Frank has become a universal character through whom people of all ages and backgrounds can recognize something of themselves. His curiosity, vulnerability, and optimism open conversations about individuality, belonging, empathy, and our need for connection. Over the past 15 years, Frank has grown from a recurring figure in Sines’s paintings and street art into a world spanning murals, public art, sculpture, and animation. Through bold color, humor, and storytelling, Sines celebrates what makes us different while revealing the emotions and experiences that connect us.

Derek Fordjour was born in Memphis, Tennessee, to Ghanaian parents. He is the recipient of the 2025 Gordon Parks Foundation Artist Fellowship and the 2022 Alliance for Young Artists & Writers Alumni Achievement Award. He has previously served as the Alex Katz Chair in Painting at Cooper Union, and as a Visiting Critic at Yale and Columbia Universities. Fordjour has received numerous public commissions in New York and Los Angeles, and his work is held in notable public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Royal Collection in London. He is a graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia; he earned an MA in Art Education from Harvard University and an MFA in Painting from Hunter College. In 2021 he founded Contemporary Arts Memphis, a youth-based arts organization in his hometown.