Art & Ancestry

MODERATOR

Courtney is an independent creative producer, writer, and artistic director of original narrative-centered immersive theater work at the intersection of folklore, cultural inheritance, and social justice including ZOTTO - A Supernatural Japanese Folktale, which will tour with support from the National Theatre Project in 2026, and Inheritance Kitchen. She is also the founder of the Japanese Arts Network, a national resource supporting and advancing Japanese artists and culture in America.

Courtney holds an MFA in Performing Arts Management from Brooklyn College and BSM from the University of Colorado at Denver's College of Arts and Media. As Creative Producer for the Denver Center for the Performing Arts’ Off-Center she supported the U.S. and regional premieres of immersive experiences including The Infinite, DARKFIELD, and Monopoly Lifesized: Touring Edition and development workshops for Third Rail Projects, Regan Linton, and Culture House Immersive. She worked as a producer for new and touring dance and opera works with The Joyce Theater and ADH Theatricals in NYC, and is an Executive Board Member of the Western Arts Alliance where she co-founded Hyphen+Asian, a collective AAPINH community space for artists and administrators in the field. Courtney is also Chair of the U.S. Japan Council Mountain Region, and is on the Advisory Board for the Creative Independent Producers Alliance. Motivated by the impetus that an inclusive arts culture leads to a more productive and empathetic society, she was the recipient of the 2024 JEDI Denver Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Arts and Culture and the 2025 Asian American Heroes of Colorado award. She is passionate about the melding of ideas, and the integration and interdependence of arts sectors.

PANELIST

In 1989 Ratha Sok was born in Denver, Colorado and is a first-generation Cambodian American contemporary artist. With over a decade of creating fine arts media such as paintings and murals for both public and commercial (streetwear, merchandise, government municipalities and cooperate) clientele.

His use of multimedia includes spray paints, acrylics and digital arts. He is known for his storytelling and community centered works across the Denver metro area but has works throughout the states of Colorado, Texas, Oregon and California.

His aesthetic includes, graffiti roots, vibrant sweeps of bold colors, showcasing signature community elements and highlighting histories in high detail.

PANELIST

For over 35 years, sculptor Shohini Ghosh has redefined public landscapes across three continents. From the bustling streets of China and India to prominent collections in the United States, her bronze works command attention in the spaces where we live, work, and gather. Her sculptures are featured in the Denver Art Museum, the Florida Underwater Museum of Art, and across 15 cities on the Public Art Archive Map—including City of Denver, CO, Hudson Gardens, CO, Sioux Fall SD, Mason City, IA, Eau Clair WI, Portland, OR, Farmington NM and St. Paul, MN. As a woman of color,Shohini brings a vital perspective to contemporary sculpture, creating powerful figurative and stylistic representations that capture the global zeitgeist. Her work is rooted in the belief that art belongs beyond the "white walls" of traditional galleries. Through intentional composition and a mastery of three-dimensional form, she uses public art as a catalyst for placemaking, fostering community pride and transforming ordinary environments into meaningful landmarks. To Shohini, sculpture is more than an object; it is a transformative journey. Just as art makes a house a home, her public installations shape and uplift the civic experience, creating unforgettable moments of connection for viewers worldwide.

PANELIST

Sangeeta Reddy emigrated to the United States in 1978 from Hyderabad, India. As the first South Asian painter in Denver, Reddy’s career began 40 years ago in 1985 during which she was represented by galleries in Denver, Boulder, Aspen, New York, New Delhi, Chennai, Santa Fe and Hyderabad. With a degree in English Literature and philosophy at Bombay University, Reddy went on to study art in Hyderabad, Oklahoma and later at Rocky Mountain College of Art in Denver. She was an associate Professor of drawing at Arapahoe Community College.

Primarily an abstract painter working conceptually with ideas of 6th century Indian philosopher, Sankara, in 2011, her focus shifted to landscapes of the Colorado Plateau. In 2016, her large scale landscapes were shown in a solo exhibition by the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art at Mackey Gallery in CU. Besides other private and corporate collections, one of her landscapes have been collected by Denver Art Museum. After Covid, her work centered around studies of iconic rock formations of the Front Range and in her neighborhood as centralized compositions by which deities are represented in traditional Asian Art.

Reddy is a member of the Artnauts, an artist collective that uses the visual arts as a tool for addressing global issues, blurring the boundaries between art, activism and social practice. She is also a founding member of the Colorado South Asian Art Group.