Beyond, 2009, installation, tissue paper, size variable
A few weeks after I started working with tissue paper, Hurricane Katrina began bearing down on the Gulf Coast and I witnessed “water moving color” literally, the power of nature, and the neglect of a nation. The sheer magnitude of the destruction and the remaining marks of flooding struck a direct connection to my artwork. Over the past four years I have worked with “bleeding” tissue paper, witnessing its deterioration. In and out of water, ripped and pieced back together, thrown, stepped on, forgotten and remembered. The union of the tissue fragments is rooted in my familial quilt‐making heritage and the tradition of preservation and resourcefulness. Since I haven’t discarded a single sheet, each piece speaks to me as a memory of existence and resilience. Independently, a torn piece of paper seems like a scrap of trash, but once unified with others, the force is overwhelming. Reflecting on the beauty and diversity of the African diaspora, my Tissue Paper Sculptures scale the wall and demand attention. Fragments of familiar faces stare down from above and beam with strength and solidarity.
Dark Days, 1999, gelatin silver emulsion and oil on paper, 13½ x 16½˝
Flight (study), 2008, gelatin silver emulsion on paper, 24 x 17˝
Cipher #2, 2009, gelatin silver prints, 18 x 24˝
Terry Boddie works as a photographer and mixed media artist explores the historical, and contemporary aspects of memory and migration and globalization. The images often blur the distinctions between photography, drawing and painting. Recently his work was exhibited in KREYOL Factory at the Parc La Villette in Paris, France and in the show Infinite Island, Contemporary Caribbean Art at the Brooklyn Museum. His work has also been exhibited at the Smithsonian, The Studio Museum in Harlem, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, and the Philadelphia Museum among other venues. He is on the Artist Advisory Committee of the New York Foundation of the Arts and the Artist Advisory Board of En Foco. Terry Boddie received a 2009 Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. He lives and works in West Orange, NJ.
Once I Found My Hips (pictured),
2005, archival pigment print, 16 x 20˝
The Holy Doubt, 2006, archival pigment print, 16 x 20˝
Patrick "Pato" Hebert is an interdisciplinary artist, educator and cultural worker based in Los Angeles. His work explores the aesthetics, ethics and poetics of interconnectedness. He utilizes photography, installation, sculpture, light, temporality and graphic design. He is especially interested in the spirit of social topographies and spatial dynamics. He currently teaches in the Photography and Imaging Department at Art Center College of Design.
Fly, 1976 (pictured), apple wood, plastic, and wire on canvas, 1/2 x 3/8 x 3/8˝
Fly, 1976, apple wood, plastic, and wire on plaster, 1/2 x 3/8 x 3/8˝
Tom Hebert has had numerous one person shows in New England, and has exhibited at O.K. Harris Works of Art, and at Exit Art, both in New York City. His work has been included in many group exhibitions in the United States and in Germany. He is the recipient of an Individual Artist Grant in Painting from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation (NYC), and of three Fellowship Awards from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts. He was also an Artist in Residence at Gesamthochschule Universitat in Kassel, Germany.
Felicia Megginson
Seven Sistahs Series: Bang, FMP-Noochie, Head Game, Medusa, Samson's Revenge, Soul on Ice, Soul in the Hole 2004/2007, gel ink and colored pencil on vellum, 9 x 12˝
These drawings take on notions of beauty, sexuality, social identity, and the sundry other "mythologies" that get attached to and entangled in a woman's hair. How a woman wears her hair is often viewed as a reflection of how she sees herself and--in turn--how the world at large receives her. Humor is often a starting point for dialogue, and it is my hope that these drawings will spark conversations about societal tropes of the other and the role hair often plays (rightly or wrongly) in these observations.
Hope Cola (pictured), 2009, acrylic on wood, 11 x 9 x 5˝
Thrill Grill, 2009, acrylic on wood, 17 x 19 x 9˝
Justin R. Thompson
Table (Bourgeois Blues), 2009, video, 4 minutes
My work investigates
crossroads between ancient Italian references and those of historic and
contemporary African-American culture. This mix along with sound works that
shift the cultural context of famous songs through reinterpretation results in
a funktified vision of abstractly linked situations and an ancient roman
influenced hip-hop culture.
Table is a performance
based video that investigates the idea of servitude in the context of art and
the elite. The performance is the simple
action of holding up a faux marble inlay tabletop. During the performance, the weight of the tabletop,
supporting the appetizers and champagne, crushes the figure that holds it up.
This re-visitation of servitude and its social significance within an elite art
context is meant to underline historic continuum. The piece ends when the table collapses upon its
support at which point a voiceover of a music critics interpretation of the
piece is heard.
Flavor of Saint, 2009, oil, tar, acrylic, decal paper, and gold leaf on wood, 44 x 30˝
In his current work, Chris Valle transposes images of pop culture over
re-created Italian altar paintings from the 15-16th century, using the
symbolic power of these religious images to allude to how pop images
have now taken on religious status. He paints these images delivered from
television transparently, allowing the original altar painting to show
through, making it impossible to see one without the other. The
resulting dialogue between the meaning of the original with the
contemporary pop image on top of it deconstructs the quasi religious
use of pop images in a consumer society.
Susan Zurbrigg
Honeychild I and II, 2007, oil on wood with gold leaf, 16 x 20˝
Honeychild I and II (detail pictured), 2007, macramé, clay, glass, and gold leaf, 96 x 24˝
My
work is a continued investigation into the complex language of abstraction. It
is the puzzle piecing, analytical act of “finding” a
painting, while
also referencing body movements and gesture, eliciting the sensual/senses
through color, nostalgia and memory. It is the evidence of
exploratory thinking, the search, and even the struggle. Recent
works have thick, lavish surfaces. They combine painterly negotiations of space
with an almost fashion-like adornment of gilded and sequined embellishment. I seek to redress the
pejorative and dismissive connotations associated with the “decorative”. This work is a suggestive nod to the
Pattern and Decoration movement and its conscious inclusion of global
aesthetics and folk traditions. As an Interracial-African American, I am
also inspired to assert a painterly adaptation of the “free styling” “call and
response” process often utilized by musicians and writers. I find the language of abstraction
a true extension of this practice.
