Will Raojenina selected as Inaugural Artist for The Art of Labour Series
For the inaugural solo exhibition in The Art of Labour series, Beloved Community is honored to feature acclaimed Los Angeles-based artist Will Raojenina.
The Art of Labour: Abundance, Despite invited artists to reflect on the realities of creative survival in Los Angeles: the labour behind sustaining a practice, the systems that shape opportunity, and the ways artists continue to build identity, belonging, joy, and collective care through creation. This exhibition centers works exploring survival, labour, joy, reinvention, community, and imagination in the face of economic, social, or personal obstacles
The inaugural exhibition roots in one of Beloved Community’s core values: Create with Abundance: We deeply believe that there is enough for everyone. It is our duty to make space, to co-create, and to imagine abundant possibilities in ourselves and our communities. It is our time to build just futures and to do so from a place of abundance.
We are excited to feature the work of Will Raojenina for The Art of Labour: Abundance, Despite. Will adeptly explores the ways that communities transform limitation into abundance and create opportunities from their realities. So many of the themes present in Raojenina’s work evoke different aspects of our beloved community.
“Abundance isn’t just about what we have materially, but it’s how we deeply connect to what grounds us.“
Will Raojenina, WCMTL
Will Raojenina (b. Montreal, Canada; lives and works in Los Angeles) is a multidisciplinary artist working under the name WCMTL. Born to immigrant parents from Madagascar, and influenced by the multicultural fabric of his hometown of Montreal, his practice bridges formal experimentation with emotionally driven narratives, connecting personal experience to broader social realities. His mixed-media works combine portraiture, abstraction, heavy texture, and the assemblage of found objects to transform stories of resilience into powerful visual experiences that uplift communities. Through his work, he invites viewers to see themselves in the experiences of others, reinforcing his guiding ethos: “Connect Through Empathy.”
His practice explores creativity as a space for survival, release, and collective care. Rather than focusing on scarcity, he is interested in how individuals and communities continue building identity, joy, and belonging through acts of creation. Through layered visual storytelling, he transforms lived experience into spaces that invite reflection, empathy, and possibility, embracing abundance not as having more, but as continuing to create meaning despite limitation.
Learn more about Raojenina and his featured works here. The Art of Labour: Abundance, Despite is made possible in part through support from Black Freedom Fund.
ABUNDANCE | SIZE 48 X 72 INCHES | ACRYLIC & SPRAY PAINT WITH A MIX OF THICK MIXED MEDIA TEXTURE ON CANVAS YEAR 2021
About The Art of Labour
In 2026, Beloved Community launched The Art of Labour, a 3-city artist talk series. Each city features a one-day solo exhibition and dinner that centers visionary artists whose work explores themes of labour, work, value, sustainability, and contemporary life. Each event is designed as both an exhibition and a meaningful cultural exchange. Creating space for artists to share not only their work, but the ideas, stories, and lived experiences behind their practice.
The curatorial framework for each city reflects the culture and context of the host community while highlighting local artistic voices and perspectives. For The Art of Labour: Abundance, Despite, Beloved is honored to collaborate with respected Los Angeles-based arts community members - the curatorial team at DCDG and renowned jurors Aubrie Wienholt and Candice Taylor.
About Beloved Community
Beloved Community is a New Orleans-based nonprofit that works on sustainable solutions for racial and economic equity. Beloved leverages two mutually-reinforcing bodies of work: capacity-building for leaders in education and workforce sectors and community-engaged research. The Art of Labour is an extension of Beloved’s work on advancing good jobs and community-engaged research, weaving together multiple ways of knowing.
