Curator Deirdre Darden has assembled a thoughtful and poignant group exhibition featuring artists: Asha Elana Casey, Amber Robles Gordon, Helina Metaferia, and Tsedaye Makonnen.
In DC, neighborhoods are facing an unprecedented amount of change in appearance, racial makeup, and social policies that runs counter to the once-prevalent idea of DC being “Chocolate City.” However, there are ways to balance change with paying respects to DC’s living history. The Nicholson Project, an artist residency that recently opened in Ward 7, hopes to demonstrate this change effectively with the inaugural resident artist Amber Robles-Gordon, who lives only eight minutes from the building. For me, it feels like a house turned into a relic, with its period-accurate rehab details; however, the Nicholson Project owners do not focus on the actual former owners, but highlight contemporary artists of color instead.
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The mission of the DC Department of Government Services (DGS), according to the agency’s website, is “to build, maintain and sustain the District of Columbia’s real estate portfolio, which includes more than 191 million square feet of state-of-the-art facilities in Washington, DC.” The website says further, “This work allows the agency to foster economic viability, environmental stewardship and equity across all eight wards.”
DC residents may not know that the agency spends approximately one percent of its building budget on public art. Murals, sculptures and other public art seen at DC-owned properties such as libraries, schools and parks derive funding from this source.
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The Nicholson Project's plans include a neighborhood garden as well as an artist-in-residence. (Photo courtesy of Nicholson Project)
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.
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Event Schedule:
3:00PM Party starts!
3:30-4:00PM Open Studio w. Amber Robles Gordon
4:00-4:30PM Talk: Community Gardens + Social Justice w. Love & Carrots
4:30-4:45 ARTLAB Performance
5:30-6:30PM Intros to Art w. Amber Robles Gordon, Jefferson Pinder, Heather Clark, Larry Cook and Vincent Brown
6:30-8:00PM Music by DJ Geena Marie, Charmaine Michelle
Gallery Hours: On view Sept 14-Oct 26, by appointment only. Contact info@nicholsonproject.org
Ward 7, Washington D.C. - Today The Nicholson Project proudly announces its grand opening as an artist residency and neighborhood garden in Southeast D.C. In an effort to explore the positive roles art and design play in strengthening community, 2310 Nicholson Street, a former single family row house, has been restored as a safe, equitable residency for artists. The neighborhood garden was designed in partnership with Love & Carrots and aims to serve as a gathering place for the neighborhood, and provide fresh produce to local residents & businesses.
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hen the late Michael Platt was alive, his house would be filled with artist friends, former and current students and the random mentee whom he would advise and encourage to take their creativity head-on.
His favorite directive? “Just do it!” So, some eight months after his sudden death in January, his wife and artistic collaborator Carole Beane decided that the imploring statement should be the title of the group show, made up of nearly 40 artists who were inspired, supported and motivated by Michael Platt.
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These two bodies of artwork are about claiming and occupying space. The exhibition features photography and large-scale painted collages. The large-scale collages and some of the photography reflect the phenomenon, known as the Terminator Crossing, “the line that divides the daylight side and the night-side of a planetary body”. In this work, the planet is the Earth…
Read MoreToday we’d like to introduce you to Mikhaile Solomon.
Mikhaile, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
I was born and raised in Miami, Florida and am of Caribbean heritage. My parents are the from the islands of St. Kitts – Nevis. I graduated of Florida International University’s Graduate program in Architecture and completed my undergraduate degree in Theatre Arts at the University of South Florida. With my varied professional experiences comes many years of developmental work in design, education, arts advocacy and community development.
One of my favorite parts about working with The Studio Visit is the opportunity to get to know artists and learn more about their practice on a more personal, intimate level. I like to spend a little time before we begin a story to have a few one on one visits as well reading as much background information as possible.
Amber and I had this opportunity before we met at her studio on a warm overcast day to film a story about her life, work and process.
Amber Robles-Gordon is a multimedia visual artist with a joyful, positive, happy vibe. Her strikingly colorful work is a powerful fusion of ethnicity, identity, gender and cultural and social interests. Her childhood also informs her work which was filled with a wide range of challenges and the loving, nurturing support of her mother.
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Material-isms: The Cultivation of Womanhood and Agency Through Materiality
CHESTERTOWN — The Kohl Gallery at Washington College kicks off the 2018-19 academic year with a solo exhibit "Material-isms: the cultivation of womanhood and agency through materiality," featuring Washington, D.C.-based mixed-media artist Amber Robles-Gordon.
The exhibit features assemblage and installation works created from a range of found objects and textiles.
Opening on Thursday, Sept. 6, with a public reception from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m., "Material-isms" will run through Oct. 10. Robles-Gordon will also deliver a public talk in the gallery at 3 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 13.
According to a news release, Robles-Gordon’s artistic practice draws upon the often-paradoxical experiences of her gender, ethnicity and social and cultural influences, including her Latino, African and Caribbean heritage.
The release states, what the artist calls “hybridism” is reflected in her varied material strategies and vibrant use of color, often invoking a spiritual and energetic sensibility.
“Materials intrigue me, but colors uplift and excite me,” Robles-Gordon said in a 2017 interview with Bmore Art Magazine.
"Material-isms" will highlight Robles-Gordon’s spirited use of a bold color palette in a series of mixed-media and installation works that conjure themes of femininity and masculinity, duality, spirituality and the natural and cultural environment.
Robles-Gordon earned her Masters in Fine Arts from Howard University and has more than 15 years of experience as a practicing artist, curator and arts educator.
Her work has been reviewed or featured in The Washington Post, Washington City Paper, Hyperallergic, Huffington Post, ebony.com, The Miami Herald, Bmore Art Magazine, Support Black Art and Callaloo: Art and Culture in the African Diaspora, among other publications.
Robles-Gordon’s work has been exhibited throughout the U.S. and in Germany, Italy, Malaysia, London and Spain. She has created temporary and public installations for the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the Northern Virginia Fine Arts Association, Howard University, The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Washington Project for the Arts, Salisbury University and Martha’s Table.
In 2012, Robles-Gordon was selected for Under the Influence, in association with the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s 30 Americans exhibit. As an arts advocate, Robles-Gordon has served the Washington, D.C. regional arts community as an active member of Black Artists DC, serving as exhibitions coordinator, vice president, and president. She is also the co-founder of Delusions of Grandeur Artist Collective.
Kohl Gallery is located on the first floor of the Gibson Center for the Arts at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland. The gallery is open Wednesday through Friday 1:30 to 5:30 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday noon to 4 p.m. For more information, email: kohl_gallery@washcoll.edu.
“…an Earth alive in my consciousness as a living crystal being whose etheric geometric skeleton could be mapped in its patterns of energy flows…in ocean currents, the winds, river systems, and distributions of precious minerals. It seemed to me that ancient humans had known this sacred, hidden body of Earth and had settled on it in ways that took advantage of very visceral powers of place.”
-Bethe Hagens
The Divine Feminine in Geometric Consciousness (2010)
Hagen’s quote suggests that one can map the Earth not just through national borders, but through the power of the natural environment and the sacred energy that flows through those spaces. To her geometry is not simply a tool for measuring distances or volumes of space, but a way to consider invisible sacred energies helping keep the Earth functioning as it should. Each aspect of the environment works together creating a harmonious system. Hagen’s quote also hints at the legacy of geometric symbols moving beyond practical units, into sacred objects representing notions of infiniteness, and the unity of male and female. Moreover, depictions of spheres, circles, triangles, and their three-dimensional counterparts have used in rituals by numerous cultures spanning the world from ancient times into the present day…
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"Interdimensional Realms" by Amber Robles-Gordon
"MORE or LESS" showcases how D.C.'s affinity for Abstraction has always been a part of its artistic DNA.
by KRISTON CAPPS, Washington City Paper
MAY 24, 2018 11 AM
Process-based abstraction has always been a staple of painting in D.C. The Washington Color School was built by artists who defined their work by their approach to the canvas, whether by staining it or draping it or something else. MORE or LESS, a group show on view at Hemphill Fine Arts, shows how new trends in contemporary painting continue to line up with the work that put D.C. on the map in the 1960s and ’70s.
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Synchronous Dialogue, Bloom and Orbits, Installation, Mixed-Media, 2018
By Lyric Prince, www.sugarcanemagazine.com
Morton Fine Art, a gallery that is off to the side of the U Street Corridor in Washington D.C., fills in a niche for vibrant artists of color that are pushing boundaries and expectations on art and its potential. Mixed-media installation artist Amber Robles-Gordon's solo exhibition Third Eye Open, which closes on May 20th, was comprised of 8 assemblages produced in 2018, and presented the meeting between the physical world and the intuition of human experience. The chosen forms of the show – circles and ovum – alluded to the ongoing cycle of inserting and patterning elements for self-discovery, incubation, and introspection. Throughout, Robles-Gordon explored abstract art's potential for demonstrating spiritual growth and emotional connection on a metaphorically cosmic scale – where the rules of time and gravity fall to the wayside.
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Kepler 19 c Super Earth and Orbit, Installation, Mixed-Media, 2018
by Renee Royale, www.supportblackart.com
Her work is multilayered; upon first glance there is an overall image presented of cellular circles that contain significant amounts of patterned dark matter, or space, and then heavily layered nuclei that are brightly colored with strategically placed materials giving balance to the form. Then, upon closer inspection, one discovers tiny details, be they altering textures or hand drawn ink strokes, all seamlessly weaving their individualities into the cohesiveness of the piece. Her art is steeped in duality and the connection to divine feminine, an examination of what femininity means and how it is viewed in relationship to the masculine. Her spirals are comprised of bits of lace, portion of a blouse, lanyard reminiscent of childhood art endeavors, and other found materials that represent the realm of womanhood. The pieces spiral, reminiscent of kundalini energy, further enhanced by the subtle abstract snakes that are strategically woven into the tapestries.
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Maya Freelon’s “Bubble 2,” on view at Morton Fine Art. (Maya Freelon/Morton Fine Art)
by Mark Jenkins, Washington Post
Fabric scraps and damaged tissue paper are the essential ingredients of new work now at Morton Fine Art. Those materials might sound negligible, but Amber Robles-Gordon and Maya Freelon employ them with ambition and impact.
Robles-Gordon, a D.C. native, is known for hanging strands of textiles and other found objects in intricate arrangements. The pieces in her “Third Eye Open” are wall-mounted rather than suspended, and feature circular drawing-collages orbited by smaller rounded objects, some partly covered in bits of garments. The forms suggest zygotes and planets, as well as eyes, but at the heart of each of the larger circles is a leafy motif. Whether seen as cosmic or botanical, the artist’s circling compositions exalt natural cycles.
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by Kimberli Gant, PhD, McKinnon Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art
“…an Earth alive in my consciousness as a living crystal being whose etheric geometric skeleton could be mapped in its patterns of energy flows…in ocean currents, the winds, river systems, and distributions of precious minerals. It seemed to me that ancient humans had known this sacred, hidden body of Earth and had settled on it in ways that took advantage of very visceral powers of place.” - Bethe Hagens
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Third Eye Open, represents an internal conversation about the inter-connectedness of human life, from the infinitesimal individual to the expanse in which our universe exists and operates within - yet there are laws of physics, and highly shared beliefs and practices that hinge or bind us together…
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April 19 - June 9, 2018
By George Hemphill, Hemphill Fine Art
Washington DC — HEMPHILL is pleased to announce the exhibition MORE or LESS opening on Thursday, April 19, with a reception from 6-8pm. The exhibition will remain on view through June 9, 2018 and features paintings, works on paper and mixed media works by Rushern Baker IV, Stephen Benedicto, Ryan Crotty, Anna U. Davis, Gene Davis, Thomas Downing, Mary Early, Robert Otto Epstein, Jeremy Flick, Hedieh Javanshir Ilchi, Kevin MacDonald, Amy Pleasant, Amber Robles-Gordon, Robin Rose, Pete Schulte, Brett Smith, Michael West and Douglas Witmer.
Read MoreMore or Less: Thoughts on a Comment Made by Walter Hopps
Spring of 1979; only a month after arriving in Washington, Walter Hopps, the revered and now mythical curator, pulled a chair around my desk and sat down beside me. I barely knew Hopps, but I did know enough to see the opportunity in the moment.
So I asked the star curator what he thought was the most important movement in American art. Hopps drew hard on his cigarette, not so much for the need of nicotine, but to give his response the flare of an actor revealing the secret to the plot. His answer: Abstract Expressionism. American art would always tend toward representation, because American art and the American character were bound by a literalness. Therefore Abstract Expressionism would be seen as the most unique and revealing of the American art movements. I cannot say if this was his true belief, or if Hopps was throwing out a response meant to push his inquisitor to think more openly. Nearly 40 years later, the number of artists creating abstract works is not waning.
