Exhibition Video
imageoftheblack-panel-discussion
by Delita Martin
The Image of the Black: Reimagined & Redefined
September 13 – November 30, 2015
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Tea with Myrtis Art Salon
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Panel Discussion:
Examining the Notion of Blackness
Saturday, November 7 • 2:00 – 6:00 pm
Registration is required (fee: $15)
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Exhibitions
imageoftheblack
The Persistence of History, 2010 by S. Ross Browne
The Image of the Black: Reimagined & Redefined
September 13 – December 15, 2015
artwork | artist bios | press
The Image of the Black: Reimagined and Redefined black identity is reaffirmed through the black gaze. Artists draw from the familiar and the imagined to reinscribe the notion of blackness within the context of self. Their imagery deconstructs the white representation of race and racism, and shifts the visual paradigm to the interpretation of the black experience by blacks.
Visual tropes defy the sociohistorical construct of the “other” as inculcated through the white gaze that stereotypically degrades and dehumanizes blacks; and offers instead, an exploration of black body politics through figurative and conceptual works that challenge stereotypes, honor the black family, and as in the words of Arvie Smith, “pays homage to the dispossessed and marginalized members of our society.”
artwork
Mr. Kicks, 2013,
Oil on canvas, 40 x 30 in.
About the Exhibition
The Image of the Black: Reimagined and Redefined black identity is reaffirmed through the black gaze. Artists draw from the familiar and the imagined to reinscribe the notion of blackness within the context of self.
Their imagery deconstructs the white representation of race and racism, and shifts the visual paradigm to the interpretation of the black experience by blacks.
Visual tropes defy the sociohistorical construct of the “other” as inculcated through the white gaze that stereotypically degrades and dehumanizes blacks; and offers instead, an exploration of black body politics through figurative and conceptual works that challenge stereotypes, honor the black family, and as in the words of Arvie Smith, “pays homage to the dispossessed and marginalized members of our society.”
Artist
Michael Gross – Abstraction
Michael Gross: Abstraction I & II
Abstraction I
American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center
June 13 – July 26, 2015
Washington, DC
Abstraction II
July 8 – August 8, 2015
Gallery B
Bethesda, Maryland
About the Exhibition
Michael Gross, painter and printmaker, offers expressive and emotionally filled works using a kaleidoscope of color. Gross creates art as “a means of grappling with the impulses and struggles that make up the way I see my place in the world.” Through his visual lexicon,which is devoid of ideological reference, Gross seeks to create order from chaos. His lyrical compositions of concatenated lines, textured surfaces and rich hues, invoke Abstract Expressionism and pay homage to artists who inspire his work: Willem de Kooning, Richard Diebenkorn and Jackson Pollock. Curated by Myrtis Bedolla
Artwork
Acrlyic on canvas, quadtych
6 x 16 ft.
2015
Acrylic on canvas, tryptych
5 x 12 ft.
2015
Acrylic on canvas, dyptych
6 x 8 ft.
2014
Acrylic on canvas
4 x 4 ft.
2014
Acrylic on canvas, dyptych
5 x 8 ft.
2014
Acyrlic on canvas, dyptych
4 x 9 ft.
2014
Acrylic on canvas, dyptych
4 x 10 ft.
2014
Acrylic on canvas, dyptych
6 x 8 ft.
2013
Acrylic on Canvas, dyptch
6 x 8 ft.
2014
Michael Gross
Born in 1944 and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Gross showed artistic promise from a young age. His talents were influenced and nurtured by his artist mother, with whom he would travel to the Art Institute of Chicago where they took classes and his father, an advertising executive who took Gross to his office on weekends, where he would set him up at a drafting table with crayons and paper, allowing him to draw for hours. As a fledgling artist at the age of ten, Gross won an art competition and received a $500 savings bond.
Gross would go on to earn a Juris Doctor degree from New York University School of Law, becoming a corporate attorney, and in the 80s, a real estate developer. But art-making always remained an integral part of his life, as he continued to take classes at the Corcoran College of Art + Design in Washington, DC and develop his techniques under the watchful eye of friend and mentor, artist William Christenberry.
Artist
The World is Going to Hell and I am…
The World is Going to Hell and I am Printing Yellow!
view the exhibition | about the artists
Artists’ Talk: The World is Going to Hell and I am Printing Yellow! is the affirmation of ten women artists who hold firm to their conviction to create objects of beauty in the face of a changing world and the challenges of daily life.
Featured Artists: Susan Goldman, Sujata Gopalan, Anita Jung, Barbara Kerne, Bridget Sue Lambert, Kathryn Maxwell, Miriam Mörsel Nathan, Patricia Underwood, Eve Stockton and Judit Varga.
Artist
Nina Buxenbaum Video
Nina Buxenbaum
artwork | video | statement | bio
Courtesy New Canaan Library – The Curtis Gallery, New Canaan, CT, 2018
Artist
Nina Buxenbaum
Nina Buxenbaum
artwork | video | statement | bio
Artist
Nina Buxenbaum Statement
Nina Buxenbaum
artwork | video | statement | bio
Statement
I began my work as an exploration of images of African American women in our society. As an African-American woman of mixed heritage, I approach my work as an opportunity to position women of color into the Western Art Canon where we have been conspicuously absent. We judge a culture and a civilization by the images and art objects that they create. I have always focused on creating honest and personal depictions of women, particularly women of color, as a means to provide an alternative to the stereotypes prevalent in our culture.
I use the “Topsy-Turvy doll” as a metaphor of black women and the way we learn to define ourselves. The doll, whose name is derived from the character of Topsy in the Harriet Beecher Stowe novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, is designed to look like a southern belle on one side, but her dress conceals a black girl underneath. Through the flip doll, I explore my personal expression of self, as a biracial-woman, and also play with the metamorphosis of identity. I am also interested in the ability of this subject matter to address femininity as it relates to cultural constructs including class and race. The complexity of identity is one of transformation and redefinition: it is mutable.
These dueling images deal with some of the complexities of identity that go beyond race. Much of the work is autobiographical; it is the personal versus the public persona that I am exploring. The internal self and the self we project out to the world are often disparate or opposing, sometimes in subtle ways. As I continue to paint these women, I find deeper layers that tell more complex stories about who we are and who we pretend to be.
artwork: Pair, 24″ x 18″, Oil on panel, 2012
Artist
Nina Buxenbaum Biography
Nina Buxenbaum
artwork | video | statement | bio
Biography
Double Identity by Nina Buxenbaum[/caption]Nina Buxenbaum was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY to a politically active, multi-racial household. She received her MFA degree in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art and her BFA from Washington University in St. Louis in drawing and printmaking.
Ms.Buxenbaum has participated in residencies at the Cité Interational des Artes in Paris, France, the Skowhegan School of Painting (Skowhegan, MN), The Artists Alliance (NY, NY), and The Byrdcliff Artist in Residence, (Woodstock, NY). Her work has been included in several exhibitions including the Studio Museum of Harlem (NYC, NY), the Kentler International Drawing Space (Brooklyn, NY), the Ingalls Gallery (Miami, FL), Rush Arts (NYC, NY), The Sampson Projects (Boston, MA), including a solo show at The Stella Jones Gallery (New Orleans, LA). Her work has been reviewed in the International Review of African American Art.
She is currently an Associate Professor at York College, CUNY, in Jamaica , NY, and Coordinator of the Fine Arts Discipline in the Department of Performing and Fine Arts. She maintains and active studio practice in Brooklyn, NY and Bethel, CT.
Exhibitions
Shadow Matter The Rhythm of Structure Afro Futurism to…
Shadow Matter: The Rhythm of Structure/ Afro-Futurism to Afro-Surrealism
January 19 – August 30, 2015
Curatorial Statement
by Myrtis Bedolla, Founding Director, Galerie Myrtis
Exhibition Location: Charles H. Wright Museum, Detroit, Michigan
Shadow Matter: The Rhythm of Structure/ Afro-Futurism to Afro-Surrealism features sculptures by New York sculptor M. Scott Johnson (Inkster, Michigan, 1968). In parallel with the aesthetic practices of both Afro-Futurism and Afro-Surrealism, Johnson transforms the ancient medium of stone into intricately carved sculptures that fuse African and African-American visual cultures. The work in this exhibition explores his journey in becoming one of the most unique sculptors of his generation.
This mid-career retrospective, traces the trajectory of Johnson’s multifaceted career. His works are rooted in Afro-Diasporan imagination and are inspired by folklore, mythology, revisionist history and his education as a student of Detroit’s techno/house
music universe. As an “artivist,” Scott unabashedly and unapologetically addresses self-perceived notions of classism and race, while harnessing his visual syntax to give voice to the disenfranchised. He has extended performance of sculpture into the social sphere by initiating and developing community-based collaborative public art throughout New York City.
Scott’s education as a sculptor began in 1994, in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe as a member of Operation Crossroads Africa. While there he studied traditional and contemporary stone sculpting under the tutelage of the local artists who occupied the endless alleyways of the city. At the time Zimbabwe was producing some of the most important stone sculptors in the contemporary art world. His greatest opportunity as a young artist came when he auditioned and was invited to apprentice (1996-1999) with master sculptor and national hero Nicholas Mukomberanwa (1940-2002) in Ruwa, Zimbabwe.
As an Afro-Futurist/Surrealist, Scott embraces the aesthetic mixture of fantasy, Afrocentricity, and magic realism with non-Western cosmologies to create new cultural landscapes and reshape old ones. Johnson believes his early embrace of Techno music was a point of departure into the scientific and spiritual practices of the African Diaspora. He also states that growing up in the close-knit community of Inkster provided him with an extremely supportive base of natural allies, willing to help expand his intellectual and artistic horizons.
Exhibition Location:
Charles H. Wright Museum
315 East Warren Avenue
Detroit, MI 48201
thewright.org
Artist
Empire Artwork
Artwork featured from Galerie Myrtis on Fox’s Empire
Galerie Myrtis is pleased to announce that artwork by Jamea Richmond-Edwards, Jeffrey Kent and Arvie Smith will be featured on Fox’s new drama series Empire. The first episode will air January 7, 2015.
Synopsis: Hip-hop artist and CEO of Empire Entertainment, Lucious Lyon (Terrence Howard), has always ruled unchallenged, but a medical diagnosis predicts he will be incapacitated in three years, which prompts the sharks to circle. Without further damaging his family, he must decide which of his three sons will take over. The reappearance of Cookie, his ex-wife (Taraji P. Henson), complicates things; she says he owes her for taking the fall for the drug-running that financed his early career.
featured artwork
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