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I Was Always Here Before You (detail), 2012, by Michael Platt
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Her work has been exhibited internationally and is included in the collections of the Reginald F. Lewis Museum and the U.S. State Department. Her latest work—a combination of tissue paper, printmaking, collage, and sculpture—was hailed by the International Review of African American Art as “a vibrant, beating assemblage of color.”
MK Asante is a bestselling author, award-winning filmmaker, hip-hop artist, and professor who CNN calls “a master storyteller and major creative force.”
Asante is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Buck, described by Maya Angelou as “A story of surviving and thriving with passion, compassion, wit, and style.” Buck is a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick. His other books are It’s Bigger Than Hip Hop, Beautiful. And Ugly Too, and Like Water Running Off My Back.
Asante is a tenured professor of creative writing and film in the Department of English and Language Arts at Morgan State University.
Michael Platt’s imagery has centered on the transformation of the human spirit that occurs when it confronts imagined or actual events and circumstances. Using the female figure, he creates images intended to express traces of the human spirit, often inspired by spaces with a history and the presence of things left behind. Empty spaces are as much storytellers as those filled with living. Exploring the visual possibilities of such circumstances, Platt has addressed issues of slavery, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the levees, waiting, searching for home; and celebration.
Major exhibitions and publications include Celebrations: Three Generations of African American Women Sculptors: A Study in Paradox; Vice President and essayist for the Jacob Lawrence Catalog Riasonné Project, Over the Line: The Art and Life of Jacob Lawrence (University of Washington Press, 2000); Sugar and Spice: The Art of Bettye Saar (Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, 2003); Aminah Robinson: Aesthetic Realities/Artistic Vision in The Art of Aminah Robinson (Columbus Museum of Art, 2003); and Inner Being/Altered States: Painting the Life-Worlds of Beverly McIver’s Realities in The Many Faces of Beverly McIver (40 Acres Gallery, 2004). Most recently was her book, Hughie Lee-Smith, (2010) Pomegranate Press
Jose Mapily was born on August 13, 1941 in Washington, D.C. Mapily attended and graduated from Howard University in 1965, earning his B.A. degree in architecture. In 1972, Mapily earned his M.A. degree in city and regional planning, also from Howard University.
Mapily has also begun a career as an artist. His artwork can be described as gridlike paintings made out of white dots on a dark ground that resemble schematic drawings of buildings or circuit diagrams for electrical components. Mapily’s artwork appeared at the Gala Auction Exhibition at the WPA/Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
Charly Palmer was born in 1960 in Fayette, Alabama and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. A successful graphic designer and illustrator with his own design studio and Fortune 500 clientele, Palmer devotes much of his life to pursuing his fine art dreams, and is establishing himself as a fine artist of note.
Palmer has brought to his complex pictorial compositions a technique and style that are distinctive and readily identifiable. He has in the recent past created work under the assumed name “Carlos,” his alter ego. This allowed him, he says, the freedom to experiment, be spontaneous and have fun with his art. The result is a body of work that is less controlled and more abstract and primal. Constantly evolving and growing as an artist, Palmer has over time fused the two artistic styles to the degree that he found the perfect stylistic voice with which to express himself in the powerful “Civil Rights” series.
Charly Palmer studied art and design at the American Academy of Art, where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and the School of the Art Institute, both in Chicago, and has taught design and illustration at the college level. His work is in private and public collections, which include Atlanta Life Insurance, McDonald’s Corporation, Miller Brewing Company, the Coca Cola Company and Vanderbilt University. He has had a number of one man shows in galleries in the United States. The artist has been the recipient of significant commissions including an official poster for the 1996 Olympics and the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau. He currently lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia.
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Susan J. Goldman, artist, master printmaker, curator and filmmaker, is Founding Director of Printmaking Legacy Project ®, (PLP®) a non-profit based dedicated to the documentation, preservation and conservation of printmaking practice and history.
She is curator for Forward Press: 21stAmerican Printmaking, PLP®’s premier 2019 major national print exhibition for the greater Washington DC community, at the American University Museum, Katzen Center for the Arts.
Goldman is also Founding Director of Lily Press®, which began as a private studio in 2000. Her first collaborative projects included Elizabeth Catlett, and most recently for Sam Gilliam, Sylvia Snowden, Keiko Hara.
Goldman received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Indiana University-Bloomington in 1981, and a Master of Fine Arts from Arizona State University-Tempe, in 1984.
After moving to Washington in 1990, Goldman taught printmaking at the Corcoran College of Art and Design, MICA, Georgetown University, and was Master Printer/Program Director at Pyramid Atlantic.
From 2000-2012 was Adjunct Professor/Master Printer for Navigation Press at George Mason University-Fairfax.
Goldman received a National Endowment for the Arts Grant 2011-12, as producer and director of Midwest Matrix ®, an hour-long groundbreaking documentary videotape DVD on the fine art printmaking tradition of the American Midwest.
Goldman sustains a full-time vibrant studio practice producing and exhibiting her own work nationally and internationally. Her work is in private and public collections worldwide
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For many years I have explored the role of memory and memorials in fashioning human history and identity in my art. My photographs and present abstracted artistic explorations dramatically portray configurations and coding processes of memory.
They represent memory as a template in which the mind stores cherished and sensitive experiences of people, places and events. My art often contains calligraphic marks, strokes, swirling lines, language overlays of varied materials and colors, shadows and atmospheric conditions, naturalistic formations in nature, such as trees, water and rocks.
My photographs offer glimpses of urban and rural landscapes and lifestyles of people of color today. Each work is titled and hopefully that adds to a greater understanding and discussion of the art between artist and viewer.
artwork: Blue Rhythm, Mixed media print, 30” x 22.5” unframed, 2010
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Evangeline J. Montgomery – Printmaking Legacy Project, Inc.
Evangeline Juliet Montgomery was born on May 2, 1930 in New York City. Her mother was a homemaker and her father, a Baptist minister. She discovered her artistic talents when she received her first oil painting set at the age of fourteen. In 1951, Montgomery earned her high school diploma from Seward Park High School.
From 1951 until 1954, she worked painting faces on dolls and religious statues. In 1955, Montgomery moved to Los Angeles with her husband and worked for Thomas Usher, an African American jewelry designer; while attending Los Angeles City College Evangeline earned an AA degree and she went on earn a BFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts.
Evangeline entered the museum field in 1967 serving as an independent curator to museums, university galleries, community galleries and art centers where she organized over 150 exhibitions. She served as the curator for the Rainbow Sign Gallery in Berkeley, California before becoming an exhibition specialist for the American Association for State and Local History in Nashville, Tennessee and coordinating eight national workshops on “Interpreting the Humanities Through Museum Exhibits”. She also organized national exhibit workshops for the Association of African American Museums. From 1976 until 1979, Montgomery also served as a San Francisco art commissioner.
In 1980, Montgomery moved to Washington, D.C. where she worked as community affairs director for WHMM-TV. In 1983, Montgomery began her career with the United States Department of State as a program development officer for the Arts America Program at the United States Information Agency (USIA), specializing in American exhibitions touring abroad. In this capacity, she developed and implemented successful American fine art programs in the United States and throughout the world.
Ms. Montgomery is an active studio artist working in prints, metals, fiber and photography. Her works are in the Los Angeles Board of Education (Los Angeles, CA), The Oakland Museum (Oakland, CA) and The Museum of the National Center for African American Artists (Boston, MA) collections.
Montgomery has held solo shows in Washington, D.C., Detroit, Philadelphia, Boston and New Orleans. Her group exhibitions include the Washenaw Community College Art Gallery (Ann Arbor, MI), Stella Jones Gallery (New Orleans, LA), National Conference of Artists Gallery (Detroit, MI) and Schomburg Research Center Art Gallery (New York, NY). Montgomery’s solo exhibits include the Brandywine Workshop Printed Image Gallery (Philadelphia, PA), Anderson Gallery (Pontiac, MI), Hampton Institute Museum (Hampton, VA) and DePauw University Art Gallery (Greencastle, IN).
