Jessica Stafford Davis

Jessica Stafford Davis…

is the founder of The Agora Culture LLC,(TAC) a national online multicultural arts platform that supports emerging artists of color and collectors through educational programming, art salons, and its annual Art On the Vine exhibition in Martha’s Vineyard. One of the only contemporary African-American art fairs presenting critically-acclaimed, institutional-level work in the United States, Art On the Vine also features a four-week residency named for acclaimed visual artists, Augusta Savage, and Norman Lewis. Through the Savage-Lewis residency, selected artists are provided with an opportunity to collaborate and create new works as part of an effort to help them grow and explore their creative practices.  

Ms. Stafford Davis's mission to highlight African-American artists extends into her special curatorial projects including her most recent exhibition of Jon-Serie Goff's work in collaboration with the Middleburg Film Festival. RECLAMATION, inspired by the history of Middleburg, Virginia was an exhibition that centered enslaved and free Black laborers whose presence and history had long been forgotten by the general public. She has also been announced as the curator for By the People, an arts and dialogue festival, slated for June 2019 in Washington D.C.  and presented by Halcyon.

In addition, Ms. Stafford Davis is the 2018 and first recipient of the Arena Stage Emerging Leader Award. She currently serves as a member of the George Mason University School of Art Advisory Board and is an ArtTable member.  She has served as a board member of Washington Project for the Arts, The Smith Center for Healing in the Arts. She is a graduate of George Mason University and resides in McLean, Virginia with her two sons.