SAAM Presents – Championing Black Art: A Conversation with…
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Championing Black Art: A Conversation with Myrtis Bedolla
Gallerist, curator, and art advisor Myrtis Bedolla brings her popular “Tea with Myrtis” event to SAAM in this rich panel discussion. The series is inspired by a deep appreciation for the transformative power of art and a desire to create a space where meaningful conversations about contemporary art can thrive. A passionate leader and champion of promoting and collecting African American art, Bedolla engages in a lively conversation with art collectors, scholars, and arts professionals. Participants include Mel Hardy, art collector and co-founder of DC-based organization Millennium Arts Salon; Leslie King-Hammond, art historian and founding director of the Center for Race and Culture at the Maryland Institute College of Art; Stephanie Stebich, the Margaret and Terry Stent Director of SAAM; and Lowery Stokes Sims, art historian. This program was presented in person and online at the Smithsonian American Art Museum on Saturday, February 25, 2024.
The Speculative Future of Blackness – Artist Talk –…
Artist Talk: The Speculative Future of Blackness
Sunday, April 24, 2022
Palazzo Michiel
Strada Nova, 4391
30121 Campo Santi Apostoli
Venezia VE, Italy
Myrtis Bedolla, Curator of The Afro-Futurist Manifesto: Blackness Reimagined exhibition, moderates a discussion with artists Tawny Chatmon, M. Scott Johnson, Delita Martin, and Arvie Smith, whose works offer discourse into African Americans’ socio-political concerns and pays tribute to the resiliency, creativity, and spirituality that have historically sustained Black people.
Blackness and the possibilities of its future are the impulses that drive the imaginations of the artists who draw inspiration from Afrofuturism, Black existentialism, spirituality, and futurist thought to construct a Black universe of tomorrow.
Between Spirits and Sisters – Delita Martin Artist Talk
Between Spirits and Sisters – Delita Martin Artist’s Talk
artwork | artist’s talk | film screening | bio | statement | resume
In Between Spirits and Sisters, Delita Martin offers mixed media works that explore womanhood inspired by the Mende belief “Wherever two or three women are gathered together, there is the spirit and authority of Sande.”
Between Spirits and Sisters – Film Screening – Daughters…
Between Spirits and Sisters by Delita Martin
Film Screening: Daughters of the Dust
Parkway Theater
5 W. North Avenue
Baltimore, MD 21201
Galerie Myrtis invites you to join Myrtis Bedolla in conversation with artist Delita Martin who will discuss the Julie Dash’s 1991 film Daughters of the Dust, and its influence on her work and current series Between Spirits and Sisters.
The program will begin with an introduction of the movie by curator of film, Sterling Warren who will talk about its cultural and historical significance. Warren’s talk will be followed by the screening of Daughters of the Dust. At the conclusion of the film, Bedolla and Martin will engage in dialogue as Martin reflects on the bond amongst women in her family, how those relationships are reflected in her work, and her quest to preserve traditions that have been passed down through generations.
Left Image: Still image from Daughters of the Dust, 1991
Right Image: Delita Martin, Blue Dress and Colored Dreams, Gelatin printing, acrylic, hand-stitching, and conte, 84″ x 53″, 2015.
Meet The Artist
Delita Martin is an artist currently based in Huffman, Texas. She received a BFA in drawing from Texas Southern University and an MFA in printmaking from Purdue University. Formerly a member of the Fine Arts faculty at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Martin currently works as a full-time artist in her studio, Black Box Press.
read full bio
Martin’s solo exhibition Between Spirits and Sisters is currently on view at Galerie Myrtis until February 2, 2019.
The Film
Daughters of the Dust: Members of the Peazant family struggle with the decision to leave their island and move north. On the eve of their departure, memories of their Gullah history and its African roots come rising to the surface. Running time: 112 minutes, PG
Director: Julie Dash
Curator of Film
Sterling Warren is a writer, artist and curator based in Baltimore. A native of Washington D.C., Sterling graduated from Howard University’s School of Communications, receiving a BA in Film. He is currently a graduate student in the Museum Studies and Historical Preservation program at Morgan State University. Sterling has collaborated with several art and history institutions including the James E. Lewis Museum of Art, the Maryland Historical Society, the Lillie Carroll Jackson Civil Rights Museum, the Walters Art Museum, and Galerie Myrtis (where he is currently the curator of film).
Photograph by Akea Brown
Founding Director, Galerie Myrtis
Myrtis Bedolla is founding director of Galerie Myrtis, a contemporary fine art gallery and art advisory located in Baltimore, Maryland. Voted, Best Gallery by the Baltimore Sun in 2017, Bedolla has also been featured in BMORE Art magazine, Issue 3, Living with Art: Myrtis Bedolla Builds a Home and Gallery in Old Goucher and in the Baltimore Style Magazine, October 2013 issue Women in the Arts which honored women at the helm of the Baltimore art scene.
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Photograph courtesy: photography.spartana.com
Profiles of Color Artist Talk
Artist’s Talk: Ronald Jackson – Profiles of Color III: Fabric, Face, and Form
artwork | artist talk | about Ronald | resume
Profiles of Color III: Fabric, Face, and Form is the third iteration of portrait paintings in which Jackson employs mixed media collage techniques and oil paint to further his exploration in re-imagining African American portraiture. Vivid hues, geometric shapes, and rich fabrics result in dramatic renderings of faces – some with floral masks, engulfed in bursts of color offering fanciful narratives from his imagination.
Black Man in a Black World Artists Talk
Black Man in a Black World
September 2 – November 18, 2017
artwork | artists’ talk | the artist’s | film | music | press
Artist Talk – Paradigms of Structure and Change: David…
Artist’s Talk with David Carlson: Paradigms of Structure and Change
exhibition | about david carlson
David Carlson Paradigms of Structure and Change
David Carlson: Paradigms of Structure and Change - Black and White Version
Working with the unique qualities of painting, drawing, and video, David Carlson engages the poetics of geometry and design through the collision of gestural lines, rounded forms, and layered imagery. Spanning over several years, the bodies of work featured in Paradigms of Structure and Change are in conversation with one another as investigations into the importance of experience and reflection within the process of intuitive creation.
Khadija Adell, Curator
Take Me Away to the Stars – Artist Talk
Artist’s Talk with Stephen Towns: Take Me Away to the Stars: The Mystery, Magic, and Myth of Nat Turner
Take Me Away to the Stars - Stephen Towns
Tea with Myrtis: Take Me Away to the Stars
Artist’s Talk: Myrtis Bedolla and Artist, Stephen Towns discuss his current exhibition, Take Me Away to The Stars: The Mystery, Magic, and Myth of Nat Turner. Using the historical and mythological chronicles of Nat Turner’s slave revolt, Towns explores the moral legitimacy and political efficacy of violent protest by blacks in their fight for freedom and equality. view the exhibition
Tea with Myrtis: Artist Stephen Towns and film critic Tim Gordon engage in a lively discussion about the exhibition and the timely cinematic prospective from the 2016 film The Birth of a Nation. Myrtis Bedolla will served as moderator.
About the Tea with Myrtis Panel
Stephen Towns
Tim Gordon
Gordon has turned his passion for film into his life’s work, seeking to educate future generations and alter the perspective of African-American portrayals on the screen and in the executive suites of Hollywood.
He began his career as a film historian studying early African-Americans in early Hollywood and its impact on current trends. In 1992, Gordon created Third Renaissance to bridge the gap between Hollywood and the African-African community. He published the company’s newsletter, The Renaissance Review, which was distributed nationally.
In 2000, Gordon created The Black Reel Reel Awards, honoring African-Americans in feature, independent and television films, as well as the online site, Reel Images Magazine, which covered the entertainment industry.
Gordon created the movie brand, “FilmGordon” in 2008, consolidating his film content and social media platforms under one umbrella.
His work has appeared in the USA Today, Variety Magazine’s prestigious Bureau of Film Critics, and has been a guest on NewsOne with Roland Martin, BET Tonight with Tavis Smiley and BET’s Screen Scene and Howard University’s Evening Exchange (WHUT-TV).
Myrtis Bedolla
As a writer, Bedolla has contributed to The International Review of African American Art and Valentine Magazine; online newsletters: ARTINFO and IRAAA (International Review of African American Art). And she has written numerous exhibition essays.
In 2015, Bedolla curated two seminal museum exhibitions, “Shadow Matter: The Rhythm of Structure / Afro Futurism to Afro Surrealism” featuring the work of sculptor M. Scott Johnson held at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African America Art in Detroit, Michigan, and “Michael Gross: Abstraction” featuring painter and printmaker Michael Gross presented at American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center in Washington, D.C.
Appointed board memberships include: the Association of African American Museums, Washington, D.C.; Art Advisory Board, University of Maryland University College, College Park Maryland; Robert Deutsch Foundation, Baltimore, Maryland; Board of Directors for the Smith Center for Healing and the Arts, Washington, D.C.; and Executive Board for the Station North Arts and Entertainment District, Baltimore, Maryland.
Bedolla is a member of ArtTable: a national organization for professional women in the visual arts. And sits on the Practicum Advisory Committee for the Masters in Curatorial Studies for Maryland Institute College of Art; Audience Committee for the Walters Art Museum; Leadership Council Committee for the Open Society Institute of Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland; Scholarship Committee for the Congressional Black Caucus, Washington, D.C. and is a past Grant Panelist for the District of Columbia Commission for the Arts and Humanities.
Photograph courtesy Stephen Spartana
photography.spartana.com
Lest We Forget Artists Talk
Lest We Forget
Artists’ Talk & Closing Reception: The exhibition presented at Galerie Myrtis, Lest We Forget examines pivotal moments and figures in US history, as well as the everyday occurrences and unknown individuals that have impacted, to various degrees, the African American experience here, and by extension, throughout the world.
view the exhibition
Artists’ Talk
Moderators: Jarvis DuBois and Deirdre Darden
Talk Participants: Shaunte Gates, Amber Robles-Gordon, Jamea Richmond-Edwards, Delita Martin and Wesley Clark
Closing Reception/Healing Ceremony
Facilitator: Geoffrey Edwards, LAC, Nu Healing Arts
The objective of the Healing ceremony is to provide the space and opportunity for attendees of the Lest We Forget exhibition and community at large to engage and reflect on the lives of the influential figures of both distant and recent past who have directly impacted current movements of social justice.
Nu Healing Arts use the expressive arts as a way to explore creative solutions to these issues by asking how can my community become a platform for creating the space that welcomes my transition to a healthier, abundant life? Geoffrey Edwards, LAC, Nu Healing Arts
