ColorTripz announced as CHCM Artist-In-Residence
Monday, December 22, 2025
The Community Health Commission of Missouri (CHCM) is proud to announce Janessa Williams (ColorTripz) as our 2025 Artist in Residence, selected through our inaugural Artist-in-Residence Program created in partnership with the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis (RAC).
A Partnership Rooted in Creative Equity
CHCM’s partnership with RAC reflects a shared belief that art can be a powerful vehicle for healing, community voice, and equity. RAC’s investment in local artists and neighborhood cultural vitality made this collaboration a natural fit for CHCM’s mission to advance community-led health equity. Through this joint initiative, the Artist in Residence will deepen how we tell community stories, elevate lived experiences, and bring artistic practice into our statewide movement for healing and justice.
Introducing the 2025 Artist in Residence: Janessa Williams (ColorTripz)
A celebrated St. Louis painter, muralist, and teaching artist, Janessa is widely recognized for her bold, vibrant storytelling that honors the resilience, identity, and cultural brilliance of Black and Brown communities. Recently named St. Louis Artist of the Year (2024 St. Louis Arts & Entertainment Awards), her work centers healing, empowerment, and representation—deeply aligned with CHCM’s equity-centered and trauma-informed approach.
“Portraits of Wellness”: A Community Storytelling Project
During her residency, Janessa will lead a year-long creative project titled “Portraits of Wellness,” a series of large-scale collaborative portraits uplifting the lived experiences of St. Louis residents.
“My vision… is to create a series of large-scale paintings titled ‘Portraits of Wellness,’ celebrating the lived experiences of St. Louis residents whose stories illuminate the intersections of health, resilience, and equity.”
The final showcase in June 2026 will pair the completed series with an immersive soundscape that brings community stories to life.
CHCM Leadership on the Residency
The Artist in Residence program reflects CHCM’s belief that creativity and storytelling are essential tools for advancing health equity. By partnering with RAC and embedding an artist directly into our work, CHCM is expanding how we engage community, honor lived experience, and imagine new pathways toward healing and systems change.
“Janessa’s vision for her residency with CHCM reflects exactly what this partnership with RAC was designed to create—art that honors lived experience, deepens belonging, and uplifts the voices too often left out of health equity spaces,” said Riisa Rawlins, CEO of CHCM. “Her talent and her commitment to community storytelling will help us imagine new possibilities for healing and transformation across Missouri.”
About the Artist
Janessa Williams (ColorTripz) is a St. Louis–based artist whose murals appear in schools, wellness spaces, and neighborhood hubs across the region. Her work explores themes of cultural identity, joy, feminism, social justice, and community healing.
Her practice, she writes, is rooted in “vibrant, layered painting that brings people together for dialogue and transformation… creating art that not only beautifies spaces but also uplifts community voices in the pursuit of a healthier, more equitable St. Louis.”
