Just a few blocks east of the Anacostia River, an unsuspecting row house in Ward 7’s Fairlawn neighborhood is being transformed. On Saturday, the Nicholson Project, a new artist residency program, will host an exhibition and celebration in the house at 2310 Nicholson St. SE from 3 to 8 p.m. The event will mark the launch of a space that will soon be home to a revolving artist-in-residence, who will live and work there.
Read MoreLarry Cook
Faculty: Artist Talk, Curated by Oshun Layne
New York, NY ...Delusions of Grandeur is heading to New York!!
Rush Art Galleries is proud to debut Faculty, a new exhibition that presents the work of Washington, D.C. artist collective, Delusions of Grandeur. Through a lens of critical intellectualism and psychic vision, the six artists who form the collective, Jamea Richmond-Edwards, Shaunté Gates, Stan Squirewell, Amber Robles-Gordon, Wesley Clark, and Larry Cook use their powers of ancestral memory to render symbols of communal black instincts within contemporary art in the new millennium. The ability to hear and bridge ancient history with the present and that which does not yet exist, drive the artists to capture transcendental ideas, cultural iconography and the everyday masses of people seeking to survive and transform the current political, social and economic landscape which threatens human beings. The works in the exhibition draw the viewer into fantasy paintings interspersed with digital photography, mixed media portraits, conceptions of human energy beginning with binary code, and a standing installation of lost and found objects to create new storytelling patterns and provide hopeful change in black culture and community.
Delusions of Grandeur came together to articulate difficult conversations of race, class, social access and community through a shared commitment and desire for making new texts out of visual concepts. Wesley Clark constructs fictional artifacts, which he ‘antiques’ from an ability to ‘see’ beyond current belief systems of what is beautiful and conventional. With White neon lettering glowing upon a black backdrop that says, “Some of my best friends are black.” Larry Cook questions if that’s the case by asking the viewer to understand black culture and identity from a place of agency and nonlinear time. In Shaunté Gates’ surreal dream affects grounded in reality based photography, the color red repeats itself in remembrance of fire and sacrifice. Jamea Richmond-Edwards portraits of black women are at once ethereal and bold. Using ink and graphite, featuring bright faux couture patterns made of paper, sequins and textiles against black space, the faces come alive in the frame imploring the viewer to return their gaze and listen to the story being told through the women's piercing eyes. Light, rich color combinations of yellows, reds and blues weave the concepts of feminine and masculine energy to mine the healing terrain of holistic power sources found in Amber Robles Gordon’s work. The science of 1’s and 0’s known as binary code informs Stan Squirewell’s exploration of birth and repetition of three-dimensional vision and sound through standing installations.
The sites of inquiry used by the artists place logical reasoning and sixth sense intuition at the center of shifting dialogue and perceptions of what black culture and community have been and what it’s becoming. Each artist, in turn, puts Faculty at the forefront of thought design, adding another layer of language to the current codes of blackness and representation.
Faculty will run from February 22nd through April 5th, 2018 at Rush Arts Gallery (located at 526 West 26th Street, Suite 311, New York, NY 10001). An opening reception will be held on Thursday, February 22nd, 6:00-8:00 p.m.
Art Watch: The place for what’s new – The Delaware Contemporary
This week’s Art Watch is all about an important center for the arts that most of you have never been to. The Delaware Contemporary, or DCCA, is a fascinating art center with ever-changing art installations that is located just 24 minutes from Longwood Gardens, and is free to the public and open every day except Monday.
DCCA has a large parking lot, is easy to get to from I-95 or down Route 52, and offers a safe, light-filled, airy space full of new art to nudge the senses. Such a cool place, and most of us have never been there! Artists often sigh that there are not enough places that show contemporary art (that is, art that shows a new take on what’s going on in the world around us), but sigh no more because we have DCCA.
Read MoreSPIRAL, RECOIL Group Exhibition Curated By Kayleigh Bryant-Greenwell
BV Rainbow, By Amber Robles-Gordon
This exhibition, curated by Kayleigh Bryant-Greenwell, engages with a legacy of black art spanning over 50 years through nine exciting contemporary visionaries. This collective body of work reflects on the black experience as artists and as Americans. Artists Holly Bass, Allana Clarke, Wesley Clark, Billy Colbert, Larry Cook, Jamea Richmond Edwards, Amber Robles-Gordon, Stanley Squirewell and Stephanie Williams create their work using a variety of media, style and technique.
Read MoreHYBRIDISM: FUSING GENDER, ETHNICITY, CULTURE, AND SOCIAL CONSTRUCTS CARA OBER JANUARY 16, 2017
by Cara Ober, BmoreArt.com
BmoreArt: Before settling in Washington, DC, you lived all over the world. Can you talk about how your family and upbringing has impacted your life as an artist?
My family is from the Caribbean – primarily from St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and Antigua, West Indies. I was born in Puerto Rico, raised in Arlington, Virginia, and have lived in Washington, DC for the last 20 years.
Read MoreLest We Forget, Artist Talk at Galerie Myrtis →
The exhibition presented at Galerie Myrtis, Lest We Forget examines pivotal moments and figures in US history, as well as the everyday occurrences and unknown individuals that have impacted, to various degrees, the African American experience here, and by extension, throughout the world.
Featured Artists
Larry Cook, Wesley Clark, Shaunte Gates, Delita Martin, Jamea Richmond-Edwards, Amber Robles-Gordon and Stan Squirewell
Curated by: Jarvis DuBois and Deirdre Darden
Lest We Forget
Galerie Myrtis
About the Exhibition
The exhibition presented at Galerie Myrtis, Lest We Forget examines pivotal moments and figures in U.S. history, as well as the everyday occurrences and unknown individuals that have impacted, to various degrees, the African American experience here, and by extension, throughout the world.
Read MoreIT TAKES A NATION
EXHIBITION DESCRIPTION
In the Alper Initiative space, Washington artists respond to the graphics of Black Panther artist Emory Douglas with sculpture, paintings, photography and multi-media installations. The exhibition features Emory Douglas and Howard University colleagues and members of the African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists (“AFRICOBRA”): Jeff Donaldson, Akili Ron Anderson, James Phillips, Jay Jarrell and Wadsworth Jarrell. Collectively, they create a powerful lens to the socio-political landscape of the late 1960s and 70s that helps to visualize the 1967 Black Panther Party 10-point platform addressing issues of freedom, employment, economic exploitation, affordable housing, education, war, police brutality, prison, due process, and access. The exhibition also includes artists examining these same issues 50 years later within a contemporary context, including: Holly Bass, Wesley Clark, Jay Coleman, Larry Cook, Tim Davis, Jamea Richmond Edwards, Shaunte Gates, Jennifer Gray, Amber Robles Gordon, Njena Jarvis, Simmie Knox, Graham Patrick, Beverly Price, Sheldon Scott, Stan Squirewell and Hank Willis Thomas.
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