Meet the 2026 Art & Soul featured artists

Art & Soul is still celebrating Black art and music in Indianapolis 30 years later.

Since 1996, the Indy Arts Council has recognized four Black, Indy-based creatives each year for their “exemplary contributions to our creative community.” Art & Soul features events celebrating art, music, dance and literature scattered across various venues in Indianapolis beginning in May, culminating in a Featured Artist Showcase at the Madam Walker Legacy Center on Oct. 10.

Auboni Essence 

Medium: Spoken word and literary artist

Hometown: Indianapolis, Indiana

Website/socials: @Auboni_essence

Auboni Hart, known professionally as Auboni Essence, has been active in Indy’s art and culture space for a while — including assisting with That Peace Open Mic, facilitating quarterly writing workshops, hosting the Indiana Youth Film Festival and being a recurring performer at The Naptones awards.

Auboni Essence started writing at the age of 12 as a way to dissect what was going on in her brain emotionally, and said her early work was mostly rhyme, influenced by a lot of hip-hop and Dr. Seuss. It wasn’t until college that Auboni Essence had a professor challenge her, arguing that what she was writing “wasn’t poetry.” Despite the feedback, Auboni Essence said the professor’s words stuck with her, and she eventually realized her poetry wasn’t meant for the page but for the stage and ran with it.

“I wasn’t writing poetry for the page, I was writing poetry that was to be consumed, it was to be performed, it was to be an experience,” Auboni Essence said. “I think that a lot of poets who do that can sometimes pigeonhole themselves or cut themselves off from writing poetry for the page, and so he stretched me, and by the end of that semester I was writing differently.”

In terms of the poetry she creates now, Auboni Essence said it’s often difficult to describe because it’s about the past, present and future, but also can be “something as regular as a crush or something as radicalizing as a headline in the news.” Beyond all that, Auboni Essence’s poetry is hope-filled; it reimagines the future and captures the nuances of life in many facets.

However, the purpose for which Auboni Essence writes and performs is to let others feel seen, heard and loved, she said, referencing the book “Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America” by Melissa Harris-Perry, which discusses how recognition is often one of the biggest things Black women are denied.

“My goal is for someone to better understand themselves, better understand a piece of the world, better understand another through my work, and so recognition kind of sits at the basis of that,” Auboni Essence said. and like, and then poetry is just like life, writing poems from my life, because my life is a lifelong poem.”

As one of the 2026 Art & Soul Featured Artists, Auboni Essence said she wants her community to know “there’s more on the way” between hosting events and performing at the Artist Showcase on Oct. 10.

Austin Dean Ashford

Medium: Multi-interdisciplinary creator, arts leader

Hometown: Bay Area, Northern California

Website/socials: austindeanashford.com 

Most Hoosiers may know Austin Dean Ashford as the inaugural artistic director for Flanner House Arts; Stage Academy. However, between writing, performing and coaching solar and ensemble plays, Ashford also records music, writes films, designs clothing and is a creative coach. 

When it comes to creating, Ashford said it was the best way for him “to understand the world and for the world to understand my perspective,” and considered the different art forms to be different means of communication. Being a creative gives him agency over his identity, rather than letting the world decide who he is or put him in a box based solely on being a 6’1″, 200 lbs bald Black man, he said.

“I appreciate creation … because it also allowed me to reimagine myself, specifically using the language of playwriting,” Ashford said. “When I’m working on plays, and I’m thinking of characters and story and narrative, it’s always allowed me to think about how I am the playwright or the screenwriter of my own life, and not just these stories I’m making.”

Ashford describes his work as “Afro-optimism.” Most people might be familiar with the genre of Afro-futurism — the cultural movement that reenvisions Black history, identity and the future — but Ashford said there’s a split between Afro-pessimism and Afro-optimism. Whether he’s working on a song, a play or apparel, Ashford said he aims to find the Afro-optimism in it, putting Black people in the most positive light possible.

“I think the world is so harsh right now, I don’t need any help being pessimistic,” Ashford said. “Now, granted, sometimes I’ll talk about a pessimistic thing, so we can get to the optimism, so it may not be all bright the whole time. I try to have a range of colors, but my goal, or the thesis, is typically ‘think about tomorrow, and you deserve to be here tomorrow.’”

At the end of the day, Ashford creates for those who came before him and poured into him, he said. His grandparents were also performers and community leaders and said the rest of his family “put a lot of effort into my development.” However, he’s also doing it for those who might not believe in themselves and need “the spark” to get them through.

Ashford knows his plays or films or clothes may not “change your whole life forever,” but if they can shift someone’s attitude for just a moment, that matters to him, Ashford said, especially when teaching.

As one of the 2026 Art & Soul Featured Artists, Ashford wants his community to know he’s honored to have this opportunity and that “the story and the thesis matter, and we can have an interesting way of getting there.” 

READ MORE: America 250, as told through the lives of Black Hoosiers

D’yshe Mansfield

Medium: Singer-songwriter, multidisciplinary artist

Hometown: Indianapolis, Indiana

Website/socials: @dyshe.official

D’yshe Mansfield wears many hats as an artist, including director and photographer, but she grew up studying music in school, including  Broad Ripple Magnet High School. Mansfield started singing at age 9, did her first musical in 4th grade, and realized that’s what she’d do for the rest of her life.

Mansfield studied integrated arts at the American Musical Dramatic Academy in New York, which allowed her to bridge the gap between theater, music, dance and jazz. When she returned to Indianapolis, Mansfield earned a degree in applied theater, film and television from Indiana University Indianapolis, which allowed her not only to direct local theater productions but also to work with youth programs. 

“All these things kind of go hand in hand, and the through line in there is I get to bring stories to life no matter if it’s through singing and… emotionally being able to vocalize that and allowing people to feel, (or) if it’s through a play and I’m putting someone’s life into words in front of them, and photography,” Mansfield said. “All these things I get to allow people to see themselves and to offer a safe space through all those things.”

Mansfield said she considers herself a genre-bending pop,/R&B/soul artist — somewhere in a category where she’s still defining herself. Rather than choosing a lane, Mansfield is staying true to her own sound and the journey it’s taking her on whether that be through pop, soul, classical or gospel.

Her latest single, “Drive,” is out across all streaming platforms now and is more of a soft pop-rock vibe, but fun, Mansfield said. 

“The message there is all about finding your pocket of peace. It’s choosing not to worry about day-to-day stressors, like having a hard day or something is going on in your life, and you’re deciding to do the one thing that makes you feel good,” Mansfield said. “And for me, that’s taking a long drive. Literally, the lyrics in that song are like ‘if I just take a drive / I’ll be just fine.’ It’s just letting go and releasing energy and finding what makes you happy and doing that thing.”

As an artist, Mansfield said it’s her job to express what other people cannot, and “if that’s the way I can reach the universe, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

“My purpose for creating is mainly that I like to give a voice to the voiceless, I like to provide emotional support through lyrics and song,” Mansfield said. “I like to allow people to just feel. I truly do believe, and I say it every time, that you can’t heal what you cannot feel.”

As one of the 2026 Art & Soul Featured Artists, Mansfield said she wants her community to know that “I’m here, and I’m showing up, and I’m representing us, Indianapolis and Naptown, and that I have space and capacity, and I’m just hoping to push Indy forward.”

Kenn.wav

Medium: Musician

Hometown: Fort Wayne, Indiana

Website/socials: kennwav.com 

Kenn Dixie, known professionally as Kenn.wav, got introduced to the arts through the children’s choir at church and the Christian private school he attended in Fort Wayne. He learned how to play an Alicia Keys song on his cousin’s piano at 8 years old, and had “an inseparable relationship” with the instrument ever since.

“Church is a great way for us, in general, specifically with younger musicians to kind of have an outlet and also have access and availability to instruments,” Kenn.wav said. “I think I found a way to be able to express what words can’t as easily do via music, and then also I found a way to give feeling, give word to the music that I’m expressing — that’s where the writing component comes in.”

Kenn.wav is kind of an all-purpose musician and said he likes to call his music “soul food” because he writes so many different styles. He’s not classically trained, and writes music to encapsulate whatever audience he’s in front of — like when he completed a 48-hour songwriting residency at the Harrison Center in June where he was tasked with writing a song about the Martindale Brightwood neighborhood.

The song, entitled “We Are the Roots,” encapsulated the history of the Martindale Brightwood neighborhood while also paying homage to the legacy of the Black people who were trailblazers in that space and the new people moving in who are part of the ever-growing story, Kenn.Wav said.

“I tried to take what’s in front of me and turn it into something,” Kenn.wav said. “I feel inspiration can come from anywhere, and specifically inspiration came from me being able to talk to the residents of that neighborhood and find out their stories.”

Kenn.wav became a father last year and said a lot of his “why” — or the reason that he creates — is for his son in the sense that he wants to show him that people can follow their dreams at any age. Kenn.wav wasn’t going down the path of music until 2020 and some major life events caused him to “reach back into the thing that I love.”

“It’s not a matter of when something happens for you, it’s just a matter of accepting that your journey is your own. … I’m here to show people to follow their dreams. It’s never too late to start over, it’s never too late to start again,” Kenn.wav said. “So, it’s kind of like getting back to who you are, finding who you are, in a sense of getting back to who you’ve always been.”

As one of the 2026 Art & Soul Featured Artists, Kenn.wav said he wants his community to know that “this is me trying, even applying for Art & Soul, this is me on a new journey. I don’t have the complete road map to where it would land, but this is me trying to branch off to try something new for myself.”

For more information, visit indyarts.org/programs/art-soul.

Contact Arts & Culture Reporter Chloe McGowan at 317-762-7848. Follow her on X @chloe_mcgowanxx.