RUBY Projects and LaRucheHTX are pleased to welcome Jaylen Pigford as our Winter 2025/26 resident.

Jaylen joins the residency in partnership with Austin-based Ivester Contemporary and will be working from our Houston studio through February 2026, developing a new body of oil paintings rooted in self-reflection, memory, and the emotional landscapes that shape personal transformation.

A self-taught Afro-Latino painter from Corpus Christi and now based in Houston, Jaylen’s work maps moments of adversity and healing through autobiographical symbolism. His paintings draw from cultural heritage, memento mori traditions, and the iconography of calaveras — reframing the skull as a reminder of resilience, legacy, and the urgency to live fully.

Throughout the residency, Jaylen will create a new series of works exploring themes of fear, gratitude, mental wellbeing, love, and the complexity of growth. This period of research and stillness at LaRucheHTX allows space to expand his material language and to push the possibilities of oil painting within his practice.

More details on open studio hours and the final presentation will be announced soon.