Artist

Ontology: Communal Expressions of Being About the Artists

Ontology: Communal Expressions of Being – About the Artists

about the exhibition | view artwork

Lavett Ballard is a mixed media artist who describes her work as a re-imagined visual narrative of African descent people. Ballard’s use of imagery reflects social issues affecting primarily Black women.

Wesley Clark is a conceptual artist whose work challenges and draws parallels between historical and contemporary cultural issues. Clark’s primary focus surrounds blacks in America and the African Diaspora. He examines the young black male psyche and the feeling of being a target.

Alfred Conteh is a painter who presents visual explorations of how people from the African Diaspora societies living in the South are fighting social, economic, educational, and psychological wars from within and without to survive.

Susan Goldman is a printmaker whose “Squaring the Flower” series explores geometry and decorative form. Love of pattern and underlying passion for color and beauty informs playful layering and improvisation. The flower gets stripped away, covered up, and over-printed, yet it always finds a way back in, like a melodious refrain or a cherry blossom in springtime.

Michael Gross is a painter and printmaker whose intensely colorful works are frenetic studies of light and movement. For Gross, every piece attempts to capture a moment of equilibrium, a kind of elegant balance in time and space, and record it permanently.

Michael Gross
The Measure of a Man, 2018
Oil and acrylic on canvas, 72 x 48″


M. Scott Johnson is a photographer and sculptor. As a photographer, Johnson navigates and interprets light, space, and soul in his Landscape Astrophotography series, which represents a yearly pilgrimage to the dark sky of New York’s Adirondack Park, where he captures the rising of the planet Venus in the Northern Hemisphere. As a sculptor, Johnson’s aesthetic and philosophical explorations are shaped by the landscape of his atavistic memories.

Megan Lewis is a painter whose work is a visual series built on her curiosities, experiences, memories, and thought processes. Gathering what she has known to be true becomes the foundation and framework of her artistry. Lewis creates work to express and share her joys.

Delita Martin is a printmaker who portrays Black women as magical beings that possess the power to transcend their black skin and exist in a spiritual form. Through the weaving of history and storytelling, Martin’s work offers narratives on the power of women whose stories are not only layered in textures and techniques but also symbolism.

Arvie Smith is a painter who works transforms the history of oppressed and stereotyped segments of the American experience into lyrical two-dimensional masterworks. Smith’s work is commonly of psychological images revealing deep sympathy for the dispossessed and marginalized members of society in an unrelenting search for beauty, meaning, and equality.

Nelson Stevens is a painter and member of AfriCOBRA (African Commune for Bad Relevant Artists) whose aesthetic is rooted in activism and a commitment to create imagery that rails against racism through positive, powerful, and uplifting imagery.

Felandus Thames is a conceptual artist whose work transcends didacticisms that are typically associated with anachronistic understandings of representation and instead aligns itself with ideas around the taxonomy of human difference. Thames is also interested in the interplay between the personal narrative and the imagined, uses humor to allow the viewer to ease into disconcerting motifs.

Exhibitions

Ontology: Communal Expressions of Being

Ontology: Communal Expressions of Being

February 19th – April 30, 2022

FEATURED ARTISTS
Lavett Ballard | Wesley Clark | Alfred Conteh
Susan Goldman | Michael Gross | M. Scott Johnson
Megan Lewis | Delita Martin | Arvie Smith
Nelson Stevens | Felandus Thames

about the artist | view artwork

This group exhibition explores concepts of existence and being, drawing inspiration from the metaphysical theory of ontology, the study of the nature of things, and their reality, identity, and relatedness.

In this exhibit, visual narratives conceived in conceptual work, paintings, prints, photography, and sculpture draw parallels between shared occurrences and belief systems derived from the artists’ personal experiences and convictions. Here the theory of ontology will be tested and either accepted or rejected as truth, as we question, do our human experiences inextricably link us? Discourse on the notion of communal expressions will challenge relatedness. And social constructionism leads the debate on what defines being, reality, and identity.


Megan Lewis
Calm, 2021
Oil and acrylic on canvas
60 x 36 ″

Artist

UTA Artist Space – Literary Muse

UTA Artist Space in collaboration with Galerie Myrtis presents
Literary Muse curated by Myrtis Bedolla

Opening Reception: Saturday, September 4, 2-5PM
UTA Artist Space
403 Foothill Rd. Beverly Hills, CA 90210
utaartistspace.com

UTA Artist Space presents Literary Muse, a new group exhibition inspired by Black literary novelists, poets, and scholars, curated by Baltimore-based Myrtis Bedolla of Galerie Myrtis. On view from September 4 through September 25, 2021, the powerful presentation brings together paintings, photographs, prints, and sculptures by twelve contemporary artists working across the United States: Lavett Ballard, Tawny Chatmon, Wesley Clark, Alfred Conteh, Larry Cook, Morel Doucet, Monica Ikegwu, Ronald Jackson, M. Scott Johnson, Delita Martin, Arvie Smith, and Felandus Thames.

The incisive writings of Black scholars, poets, and authors of fiction bear the weight of a complicated history, at times celebrated and at others, bemoaned. In Literary Muse, their words are the interpretive impulse for imagery that defines the architecture of the Black ethos. The result is a visual vernacular constructed in paintings, photographs, prints, sculptures, and conceptual works composed in hair beads and wood that interrogates the inherent complexities of race.

Steeped in the writings of authors such as Ta-Nahisi Coates, bell hooks, Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, Charles Sowell, Alice Walker, and Isabel Wilkerson, these artists draw from a lexicon of Black narratives. They create visual illustrations that probe the connection between the past and present, challenge the inequalities of structural racism, honor the traditions of the Black family’s devoted fathers and mothers, encourage Black economic empowerment and selfhood, and give symbolic meaning to poetry and fiction through visual tropes that explore Black plight.

Looking for inspiration beyond the prose of philosophers, economists, theorists, psychologists, sociologists, and historians, artists turn to the lyrics of Black composers and vocalists elucidating a truth—a gospel truth—bound-up in ancestry and spirituality rooted in the polyrhythms of Africa. Here, they find their muse in rhythms first laid down in African American spirituals which influenced the gospel, jazz, R&B, hip-hop, and rap music of today. These are the sounds that permeate the artists’ studios, consciously and subconsciously inspiring works that touch the depths of our souls.

Through the confluence of literature and artistry, Literary Muse contextualizes the Black experience through a non-Western lens. The notion of Blackness, its history, ancestry, and culture are presented as written and interpreted by its people. Scholars and composers who might otherwise remain obscure are placed at the forefront, as their words influence profound works that offer critical discourse on that which affirms and defines what it means to be Black.

— Myrtis Bedolla

“Myrtis Bedolla has a sharp eye for extraordinary artists. To wield their art and animate the words of these great Black authors and poets—to bring their narratives to life visually—is a phenomenal talent,” says Arthur Lewis, UTA Fine Arts, and UTA Artist Space Creative Director.

image
Oluma x Chimdi x Anwi by Monica Ikegwu, Oil on Canvas, 36″ in x 48″ in, 2021,
Literary Muse: Beverly Daniel Tatum, Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?
Image courtesy of the artist and Galerie Myrtis

Renaissance: Noir at UTA Artist Space, Beverly Hills, CA…

UTA Artist Space is pleased to present Renaissance: Noir, a virtual exhibition featuring works by 12 emerging Black artists, live on UTAArtistSpace.com from June 9 – July 3, 2020. Curated by Myrtis Bedolla, Baltimore-based owner of Galerie Myrtis, Renaissance: Noir investigates Blackness on the continuum of the historiographies of Black artists’ narratives that assert, individually and collectively, their state-of-mind and state-of-being Black. The timeliness of the exhibition is particularly significant, as its launch comes amidst a heightened awareness of racial injustice against the Black community, with protests occurring around the world. The show marks UTA Artist Space’s first full virtual exhibition.

view the exhibition

The artists highlighted in Renaissance: Noir are Tawny Chatmon, Wesley Clark, Alfred Conteh, Larry Cook, Morel Doucet, Monica Ikegwu, Ronald Jackson, M. Scott Johnson, Delita Martin, Arvie Smith, Nelson Stevens, and Felandus Thames. Their work collectively captures the existence of “double consciousness,” as coined by W.E.B. DuBois, where one is constantly combating the “isms” —racism, colorism, sexism, capitalism, colonialism, escapism, and criticism through the act of artistic activism.

Exhibitions

Renaissance Noir UTA Artist Space

Renaissance: Noir
UTA Artist Space, Beverly Hills, CA
Curated by Myrtis Bedolla

UTA Artist Space is pleased to present Renaissance: Noir, a virtual exhibition featuring works by 12 emerging Black artists, live on UTAArtistSpace.com from June 9 – July 3, 2020. Curated by Myrtis Bedolla, Baltimore-based owner of Galerie Myrtis, Renaissance: Noir investigates Blackness on the continuum of the historiographies of Black artists’ narratives that assert, individually and collectively, their state-of-mind and state-of-being Black. The timeliness of the exhibition is particularly significant, as its launch comes amidst a heightened awareness of racial injustice against the Black community, with protests occurring around the world. The show marks UTA Artist Space’s first full virtual exhibition.

view the exhibition

The artists highlighted in Renaissance: Noir are Tawny Chatmon, Wesley Clark, Alfred Conteh, Larry Cook, Morel Doucet, Monica Ikegwu, Ronald Jackson, M. Scott Johnson, Delita Martin, Arvie Smith, Nelson Stevens, and Felandus Thames. Their work collectively captures the existence of “double consciousness,” as coined by W.E.B. DuBois, where one is constantly combating the “isms” —racism, colorism, sexism, capitalism, colonialism, escapism, and criticism through the act of artistic activism.

Renaissance: Noir Blackness on the Continuum


by Myrtis Bedolla, Curator

Artist

Reparations – Some Things are Just Owed and Some…

Reparations: Some Things are Just Owed and Some More than Others

Solo Exhibition featuring Wesley Clark
September 22 – October, 31, 2019

artwork | artist statement | curatorial statement | about Wesley Clark

Artist Statement
The exhibition, Reparations: Some Things are Just Owed, and Some More than Others, showcases a selection of objects created by a recently discovered artisanal-based company, Reparations & Co. Reparations & Co. (a.k.a. Rep & Co.) founded by Eugene & Morris, two Black men during the Reconstruction era, created functional, subversive, and empowering objects — some futuristic in thought and process. Not much is known about the craftsmen or the company, however, in recent years several objects have surfaced on the auction and secondary markets with the company’s logo, prompting research. As such, researchers discovered what is believed to be their shop in an overgrown, abandoned, dilapidated barn-like structure near Freetown, in Glen Burnie, MD. The collection found is vast and while remarkably well preserved, some objects were vandalized, prompting restoration efforts. On display in this exhibition viewers get a peek into the past through the minds of two craftsmen as they fuse economic empowerment, restoration of identity, and more into their functional and decorative objects; during a pivotal yet short-lived period of American history.

The fictitious narrative of Reparations & Co. is what drives many of the aesthetic choices; it is the vehicle used to create a dialogue on ideas of racial socialization — as described in Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, by Dr. Joy DeGruy — as a means of expanding and internalizing the discussion of reparations to include what we as Black Americans owe ourselves.

“…the process whereby we come to know our strengths, understand the world in which we live, and position ourselves to thrive. Continual education is at the heart of racial socialization. For young children, education is the elder’s responsibility. For adults, the responsibility is our own. We have to remain vigilant and questioning. We have to continue to constantly endeavor to keep ourselves informed and our education current. We have to question the image we ourselves are portraying. We have to examine the sounds and pictures we expose ourselves to. We have to filter what we hear on the news and strive to understand what is true.“
– Joy DeGruy, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome
watch Joy DeGruy lecture on Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome

Whether from present day or generational trauma, communal preparation and advancement are at the heart of this body of work. Under the umbrella of preparation, inwardly focused themes around mental health, family history and legacy, self-respect and dignity, leadership, rebuilding the Black economy and restoring relationships are touched on as a means of being solution-oriented. While there are outside influences discussed on the traditional theme of reparations, the focus remains inward. Two examples of such influences can be found when examining the works The Profiteers 1 & The Profiteers 2. The first recognizes existing companies operating in the US (though possibly under a new name) that profited from the enslavement of Africans. The second names corporations that have or still use prison labor and thereby support the growth of the prison industrial complex (i.e., Sprint, Verizon, Bank of America and Walmart). My intent is to think about self-respect, as well as building and supporting a Black economy, as each name listed represents an industry for the Blacks to build and compete in.

A large portion of my work considers aging, weathering, and/or antiquing objects driven by fictional narratives, which informs my aesthetic choices. Most often this process is about linking present day content to historical issues, or ideas around value. Objects that are salvaged and displayed are deemed to possess a certain value or esteem. I set the stage for that sense of value to be linked to contemporary socio-political or socio-economic issues and conversations. With this body of work, I’ve chosen to incorporate custom automotive high gloss paints — often used on “tricked out” or restored cars — as a contemporary reference to notions of value. These “candy” or “flip flop/color shifting” paints are typical for early/classic model cars souped up with big, fancy rims, chrome details, or engine/body modifications. These cars have been popularized by rap culture in particular and therefore are associated with money, fame, and all that comes with it — just as owning a certain antique furniture piece once were — hence speaks to a younger generation’s value system. Such paints were incorporated into the works, Restoring our Majesty, Wading in the Waters of Babylon, and The Tell-All Earbox: Model no. C3l3stial-4, as one of two visual elements — the other being “tagging”/graffiti writing — to fuse the temporal space between the antique lover and millennial mind.

I’m not concerned with the viewer engaging my personal narratives that drive the work. More often than not, they’re just for me and my process. Reparations & Co. marks the first time my working narrative has held an elemental position (in the form of a logo placed on a few works) and thus a larger more robust storyline has emerged. I work with fictitious narratives as a means of setting a stage for myself mentally — and every stage has its props and boundaries. Therefore I’m constantly questioning, “Does this idea/object fit within the boundaries of my stage and how?” The objects (props) I choose to create are often ubiquitous, even mundane items with slight hybridity-like aspects tossed in for good measure. For the viewer, it’s the objects’ familiarity — loaded with preconceived notions and understandings – that allow entryway. With that familiarity in place, the stage is set for viewers to explore the relationship with the “foreign” social and/or political elements incorporated into the work.

Exhibitions

Reparations Some Things are Just Owed and Some More…

Reparations: Some Things are Just Owed and Some More than Others

Solo Exhibition featuring Wesley Clark
September 22 – October, 31, 2019

artwork | artist statement | curatorial statement | about Wesley Clark

Artwork

Exhibitions

Reparations: Some Things are Just Owed and Some More…

Reparations: Some Things are Just Owed and Some More than Others

Solo Exhibition featuring Wesley Clark
September 22 – October, 31, 2019

artwork | artist statement | curatorial statement | about Wesley Clark

Curatorial Statement by Myrtis Bedolla
Through a revolutionary intellectual process, Wesley Clark (1979) in his first solo exhibition at Galerie Myrtis creates a fantastical world of interwoven history, Afro-futurists, coded messages and mechanisms for survival in his investigation of what America owes the descendants of slaves and most importantly, what they owe themselves.

In Reparations: Some Things are just Owed and Some More than Others Clark probes the vestiges of slavery by transporting viewers to the reconstruction era (1865-1877) where they discover Reparations & Co. (a. k. a. Rep & Co.), a company established by Rep. & Co. Brothers, Morris and Eugene. As protagonists in Clark’s fictional world, the Rep. & Co. Brothers deploy their carpentry skills and ability to see into the future to invent devices for coping with racial discrimination, social injustice, and trauma; while offering African Americans tools to navigate and survive in a society that deems them as “other.”

A history on the economics of slavery is deployed through what appear to be simply crossword puzzles. Left in the hands of the Rep. & Co. Brothers, the lessons are disguised as decorative wall hangings; Profiteers I: Enslavement reveals the names of corporations that profited from the transatlantic slave trade and continue to operate today, namely, Lehman Brothers and J.P. Morgan. In Profiteers II: Imprisonment those benefiting from today’s modern form of slavery —the prison industrial complex —are eerily connected as their names overlap on the puzzle board, among them, Walmart, General Motors, Verizon, and Chrysler.

When expanding the narrative to what African Americans owe themselves, Clark draws inspiration from Dr. Joy DeGruy author of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome. In it DeGruy offers racial socialization as the key to confronting negative attitudes and behaviors that have plagued the black community for generations.

For Clark, the solutions lie in the creative genius of the Rep. & Co. Brothers who possess an innate understanding of the needs of the progenies of those once enslaved. Knowing that knowledge is power, they invent The Prophet’s Library a series of books informed by black scholars. Bound in wood are books that hold the unaltered truths of Black history, or is it? For coping with trauma the series Tell-All Earbox travels the country in a circus-like tent allowing all to come and bear their souls. The ear boxes are an early form of psychology. One is allowed to whisper in the ear on the box, for it holds all secrets without judgement or stigma attached. Black men and their sons can seek emotional healing in The Gift, a bearing of hearts. And in probing leadership, who we are led by and who we choose to lead, A Word Spoken is a Word Heard becomes the platform for an interactive performance on the subject.

In his artist’s statement, Clark shares the impulse for investigating the notion of reparations and creating the imagined Rep. & Co., “This fictitious narrative is the vehicle used to create a dialogue on ideas of racial socialization – as described in Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome by Dr. Joy DeGruy – as a means of expanding and internalizing the discussion of reparations to include what we as, Black Americans, owe ourselves.

Concepts around healing work — whether from present day or generational trauma — as a means of communal preparation and advancement, are at the heart of this body of work. While there are outside influences touched on around the idea of reparations, I’m focused inward…” Excerpt from artist’s statement

In Reparations: Some Things are just Owed and Some More than Others viewers will be challenged to discern fact from fiction. Clark’s confluence of mixed chronology, reimaged world, and brilliantly designed devices result in an experience that is culturally conscious, clever, and provocative.

artwork
Table of Contents
Oil paint on wood
47” x 89”
2017

Exhibitions

Reparations: Some Things are Just Owed and Some More…

Reparations: Some Things are Just Owed
and
Some More than Others


Solo Exhibition featuring Wesley Clark
September 22 – October, 31, 2019

artist statement | curatorial statement | about Wesley Clark

Through a revolutionary intellectual process, Wesley Clark (1979) in his first solo exhibition at Galerie Myrtis creates a fantastical world of interwoven history, Afro-futurists, coded messages and mechanisms for survival in his investigation of what America owes the descendants of slaves and most importantly, what they owe themselves.

In Reparations: Some Things are just Owed and Some More than Others Clark probes the vestiges of slavery by transporting viewers to the reconstruction era (1865-1877) where they discover Reparations & Co. (a. k. a. Rep & Co.), a company established by Rep. & Co. Brothers, Morris and Eugene. As protagonists in Clark’s fictional world, the Rep. & Co. Brothers deploy their carpentry skills and ability to see into the future to invent devices for coping with racial discrimination, social injustice, and trauma; while offering African Americans tools to navigate and survive in a society that deems them as “other.”
read full Curatorial Statement by Myrtis Bedolla

The Tell-All Earbox: Model no. C3l3stial-4
Urethane paint, wood, 8-1/2″ x 10-1/2″ x 9″, 2019

Artwork

Reparations: Some Things are Just Owed and Some More…

Solo Exhibition featuring Wesley Clark
September 22 – October, 31, 2019

Preview
September 22, 2019
3:00 – 5:00 pm

Opening Reception
September 28, 2019
5:00 – 7:00 pm

Tea with Myrtis
October 27, 2019
2:00 – 4:00 pm

The Tell-All Earbox: model no. C0mm0n3r-1
wood, oil paint, shellac
8 x 11 x 8.5
2019

Galerie Myrtis
2224 North Charles St
Baltimore, MD, 21218 | 410-235-3711
Tuesday & Wednesday by appointment
Thursday - Saturday, 2:00 - 6:00 PM
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