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.
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.
by Myrtis Bedolla, Curator
Exhibition Catalogue
I aim to present my perspective on this society from the point of view of a person who happens to be a woman descended from myriad cultures, but primarily African American. I observe, I experience, I process and I eventually feel compelled to construct a narrative that expresses thoughts, ideas and experiences that are simultaneously personal and universal. Through my work, I seek to tell an ongoing story as a way of bearing witness to the efforts of marginalized people everywhere, who make do to get through and the strength and creativity that often comes with that persistence. My desire is to reveal the rich, ever-evolving, alternate universe inside of my head as I navigate this limited and outdated system that seeks to mold our everyday reality in ways that run counter to our authentic selves. This parallel universe, filled with mysterious visionary soldiers, strange technological devices and evidence of ritual acts, provides me a kind of transcendence to a state of empowerment that I wish to share with the viewer. Through my work I want to convey the idea that while all human beings may have to function within this theater of the absurd, we don’t have to be of it and the ability to imagine and an open mind is a form of resistance and the escape route.
Desahogamiento, literally translated as “the act or process of undrowning,” has always been with me. I grew up hearing this word from my mother who believed in grief as medicine. She would describe desahogamiento as the self-directed, embodied “grief work” which makes healing possible. But it wasn’t until reading “Woman Who Glows in the Dark” by curandera Elena Avila that I learned desahogamiento is a literal healing technique within curanderismo, or Mexican folk medicine. My praxis is centered in the union of intuitive ways of knowing (particularly dreamwork and storytelling), our changing climate realities, and the role of art as a somatic healing technology. In this, my paintings manifest from the act of undrowning.
Works in the I See God in Us series are not only layered in textures and techniques but also in symbolism. The color blue is used throughout in varying shades. The color is a symbol of the night and representative of a magical and spiritual place; a place that is deeply grounded in cultural and oral histories that allow for the acceptance of magic in an otherwise rational world. The women in the works are magical beings that possess the power to transcend their black skin and existence in a spiritual form. Through the weaving of history and storytelling, they offer a new narrative on the power of women.
My work evaluates place, tradition, storytelling, and subject matter to develop imaginative dialogues and alternative strategies for self-imaging. Through installations, paintings, performance, video, and monumental sculptural figures, I am fabricating environments of ritual and memorial, depicting amalgamated images of new gods and mythical figures whose lives have been impacted by systemic inequalities. By developing counter and re-imagined narratives that live within the duality of physical and spiritual worlds, I am exploring the historical and contemporary social concerns of hybrid cultures, through the gaze of the African-Ascendant female progenitor.
Biography |