Personal Patterns-Panel Discussion at Montgomery College, Cafritz Foundation Arts Center

Personal Patterns-Panel Discussion at Montgomery College, Cafritz Foundation Arts Center

We will be talking about questions that were posed by curator, Claudia Rousseau's essay. We were interested in how an artist's use of pattern might reveal something about his/her sense of identity, express cultural traditions, ethnic or racial origins, and family ties. Might it be used to express an opinion on political or scientific ideas, or a concern for the environment and its current problems? How can pattern communicate emotion and express meaning? Does it invite intimacy or does it tend to hold the viewer at a distance? Is it feminist, or connote feminism, or is it universal? Where does it fit in modern art history?  

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In the galleries: Heading home

In the galleries: Heading home

By Mark Jenkins, Washington Post

F. Scott Fitzgerald, group portraits and that R.E.M song. Lottery tickets, gentrification and a fast-food sign. These are among the artifacts and phenomena that define Rockville and D.C., respectively, in exhibitions that seek to reveal something of those places’ characters. The titles are telling. VisArts’s “(Come Back to) Rockville!” is a pep-squad cheer; Honfleur Gallery’s “How We Lost D.C.” is a blues lament.

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"How We Lost DC" at Honfleur Gallery Wednesday, Sept. 16

"How We Lost DC" at Honfleur Gallery Wednesday, Sept. 16

By Emily Walz, Washington City Paper

 

Few cities are undergoing a period of gentrification as lengthy as D.C.’s, and perhaps none are gentrifying as quickly. The individual stories of displacement, as well as the larger narrative arc that shows how class and racial lines overlap to push out poorer minority communities, have particular poignancy in D.C., one of the first cities in the U.S. with a black majority. Against this backdrop, the local African-American artist collective Delusions of Grandeur created How We Lost DC, an exhibition the group calls “a visual discourse on gentrification.” The work of Wesley Clark, Larry Cook, Shaunté Gates, Jamea Richmond-Edwards, Amber Robles-Gorden, and Stan Squirewell encompasses photography, textile, paintings, mixed media, and sculpture in a show that moves between portraiture and would-be artifacts to tapestry and art made from maps of the District itself.

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Arts & Culture in Anacostia - The Kojo Knamdi Show

Arts & Culture in Anacostia - The Kojo Knamdi Show

The historic neighborhood of Anacostia has been home to the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum for nearly 50 years, where it’s focused on African American history and culture. In the past decade or so, cheaper rents East of the River have drawn artists and arts organizations to the area, including the Anacostia Playhouse, which relocated from H Street NE. We explore the arts scene, and what increasing development and property values will mean.

Guests

  • Amber Robles Gordon Visual Artist
  • Camille Giraud Akeju Director, Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum
  • John Johnson Playwright
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WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH: AMBER ROBLES-GORDON

WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH: AMBER ROBLES-GORDON

BYT Staff, https://brightestyoungthings.com

March is Women’s History Month. Throughout the month we be profiled D.C. based women you should know. Amy Morse, the founder of Ideas Club, headed the project. Today she profiles Amber Robles-Gordon.

Amber is a D.C.-based changemaker who turns big ideas into visual art. Her work, which ranges from 50-foot banners draped on D.C. buildings, to installation art and mixed media assemblages, addresses global consumerism, gender imbalance and other major social cultural themes. Through the symbolic use of materials and their interactions, she exploratory meditations on her work read like spiritual healing practice. Her vantage point is unique, academically grounded (MFA in painting from Howard University), and incredibly beautiful. For those who enjoy interacting with creative nonfiction cultural critiques, she is a gem in D.C. of social commentary, drawing from an intuitive connection to herself and her spiritual practice.

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Divinity Revealed at African Heritage Cultural Arts Center

Divinity Revealed at African Heritage Cultural Arts Center

In honor of Women’s History Month, the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center presented the Amadlozi Gallery Exhibition

Divinity Revealed will premier works by national artists, LaToya Hobbs, Sheena Rose, Martin Nyarko, and Amber Robles -Gordon. This exhibition explores femininity from the artist’s perspective within the context of their community and the world. The gallery’s opening reception is March 5th at 6pm with curatorial presentations at 6:30pm at the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center, 6161 NW 22nd Avenue, Miami, FL 33142. It is free to attend, rsvp required. The Divinity Revealed exhibition is part of “Sankofa: Looking Back, Going Forward,” a year-long series of events and performances that bring alumni back to the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center to inspire the next generation of talent, in celebration of the Center’s fortieth anniversary with funding support from The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, as part of its Knight Arts Challenge.

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FROM DC 2 MIA!

FROM DC 2 MIA!

Seven artists from DC have been invited to participate in the Prizm Art Fair and we need your help to get there! The Selected Artists: Holly Bass, Wesley Clark, Jamea Richmond-Edwards, Shaunte Gates, Amber Robles-Gordon, Adrienne Gaither and Stan Squirewell.

In recent years, DC artists, collectors and gallerists have been making the pilgrimage to Art Basel Miami Beach in ever-growing numbers. With 260 leading galleries participating and over 50,000 people in attendance, Art Basel Miami is one of the most highly exposed art fairs in North America. This year a group of 7 Black artists will be showing work together at the Prizm Art Fair, along with other jury-selected American and international artists. This is an incredible opportunity, not only as artists but as ambassadors of DC’s contemporary art scene

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Genius or Gobbledygook? “Real Beauty” at Carroll Square Gallery

Genius or Gobbledygook? “Real Beauty” at Carroll Square Gallery

LOUIS JACOBSON, http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com

 

Art theory is often inscrutable, and it’s doubly so for abstract painting. That’s why the framing of the “Real Beauty” at Carroll Square Gallery needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

“Abstraction is arguably the truest representation of how the world feels, though by definition it obscures how the world actually appears,” reads the exhibit’s wall-posted introduction.

Is this genius or gobbledygook? It’s hard to tell. And most of the works—all of them abstractions, by four different artists—don't offer much help in sorting it out.

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