Opening Reception
September 2, 2023
2:00 – 6:00 pm
This exhibition celebrates the rich history of black religious and spiritual traditions while also challenging the ways in which these practices continue to evolve and adapt in response to contemporary social and cultural realities.
Programming includes a book signing for “Shifting Time: African American Artists 2020-2021” on Saturday, September 16th from 5 – 7 pm. The event is in collaboration with the Petrucci Family Foundation (PFF). Claudia Volpe, the Director of PFF, and essayists Klare Scarborough and Berrisford Boothe will join featured artists for the event.
Exhibition Dates
September 2 – October 21, 2023
artwork Light in the Darkness II, 2023
Oil Paint on Canvas, 24 x 18″
by Monica Ikegwu
Personal Structures, July 2022
The Beauty and Confidence of Blackness
The Afro-Futurist Manifesto: Blackness Reimagined. With this installation, Galerie Myrtis seeks to provide insight into the socio-political concerns of the African-American community and celebrates black culture by paying tribute to the reliance, creativity, ingenuity, and spirituality that has historically sustained Black people, bringing it into a completely new set of Venetian landscapes.full article
Glasstire, June 2022
10 Works from the Venice Biennale that I Wish the Fort Worth Modern Would Acquire by Colette Copeland
[Tawny] Chatmon’s gold-leafed photographic portraits celebrate the beauty of black childhood. Inspired by 15th century Italian artists and artisans, as well as gold-inscribed historical relics, the artist juxtaposes the portraits onto historical landscape paintings as an act of affirmation.full article
New York Public Library, 2022
Tribute to an Afrofuturist Deity: Schomburg Center Artist & Educator M. Scott Johnson Exhibits at 59th Venice Biennale
…The stone chips were flying as M. Scott Johnson, a sculptor and visual arts instructor at the Center’s Junior Scholars Program, began work on the first sculpture of his triptych, The Metamorphosis of High John the Conqueror: Tribute to an Afrofuturist Deity.full article
Artlyst, April 2022
Eight Of The Best Collateral Events – 59th Venice Biennale by Lee Sharrock
Myrtis Bedolla, founding director of Galerie Myrtis in Baltimore MD, has curated a breathtaking group exhibition at the European Cultural Centre in Palazzo Bembo. Titled ‘The Afro-Futurist Manifesto: Blackness Reimagined’, the exhibition groups together 8 artists who are reclaiming the inequality of white art history from the point of view of a black narrative…full article
Pigmment Magazine, 2022
Venice says “BENVENUTO to Galerie Myrtis in 2022
[Galerie Myrtis] is the first Black-owned gallery to be invited to participate in the Biennale-affiliated “Personal Structures: Time Space and existence.” The gallery was invited to the prestigious show by the European Cultural Centre-Italy.full article
Black art in America, April 2022
Galerie Myrtis: Exhibiting Black Art at The Venice Biennale by Shantay Robinson
By invitation of the European Cultural Centre-Italy, Galerie Myrtis is the first black-owned gallery to be invited to participate in the Biennale-affiliated exhibition Personal Structures: Time, Space, and Existence. This historic moment is predated by the 2020 racial reckoning the world experienced.full article
Culture Type, August, 2021
Latest News in Black Art: Guggenheim Hires Diversity Chief, Galerie Myrtis Presenting Exhibition at Venice Biennale, Kehinde Wiley Redesigns MTV Moonperson & More by Victoria L. Valentine
Galerie Myrtis Fine Art & Advisory of Baltimore, Md., was invited to participate in Personal Structures, an affiliate exhibition at the 2022 Venice Biennale. The Black-owned gallery founded by Myrtis Bedolla will present “The Afro-Futurist Manifesto: Blackness Reimagined,” featuring eight artists—Tawny Chatmon, Larry Cook, Morel Doucet, Monica Ikegwu, M. Scott Johnson, Delita Martin, Arvie Smith, and Felandus Thames.full article
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.
New York Public Library, 2022
Tribute to an Afrofuturist Deity: Schomburg Center Artist & Educator M. Scott Johnson Exhibits at 59th Venice Biennale
…The stone chips were flying as M. Scott Johnson, a sculptor and visual arts instructor at the Center’s Junior Scholars Program, began work on the first sculpture of his triptych, The Metamorphosis of High John the Conqueror: Tribute to an Afrofuturist Deity.full article
Culture Type, August, 2021
Latest News in Black Art: Guggenheim Hires Diversity Chief, Galerie Myrtis Presenting Exhibition at Venice Biennale, Kehinde Wiley Redesigns MTV Moonperson & More by Victoria L. Valentine
Galerie Myrtis Fine Art & Advisory of Baltimore, Md., was invited to participate in Personal Structures, an affiliate exhibition at the 2022 Venice Biennale. The Black-owned gallery founded by Myrtis Bedolla will present “The Afro-Futurist Manifesto: Blackness Reimagined” featuring eight artists—Tawny Chatmon, Larry Cook, Morel Doucet, Monica Ikegwu, M. Scott Johnson, Delita Martin, Arvie Smith, and Felandus Thames.full article
Atlanta Blackstar, 2015
The Rhythm of Structure: Detroit Techno and Sculpting Converge by Shelby Jefferson
“Techno taught me how to organize abstraction in my mind; the repetition opens up corridors of your conscious thought,” Johnson explains. “Working with stone in Africa, you see how rhythm manifests itself physically…” full article
Michigan Chronicle, 2015
Art exhibit by Inkster’s own M. Scott Johnson by Scott Talley
…the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History presents Shadow Matter: The Rhythm of Structure / Afro Futurism to Afro Surrealism. “Shadow Matter” features the work of renowned sculptor M. Scott Johnson… full article
In The Afro-Futurist Manifesto: Blackness Reimagined, artists assert agency over narratives of Black life, offer discourse into the socio-political concerns of African Americans, and pay tribute to the resiliency, creativity, and spirituality that have historically sustained Black people. ● Curated by Myrtis Bedolla, Founding Director, Galerie Myrtis
FEATURED ARTISTS
Tawny Chatmon ● Larry Cook ● Morel Doucet ● Monica Ikegwu ● M. Scott Johnson ● Delita Martin ● Arvie Smith ● Felandus Thames
Daniel F Bergsvik and Donald N. Hastler
Reginald and Aliya Browne
Ilona Sochynsky
The Tibbles Family Trust
Members of the European Cultural Centre Italy Team talk about the sixth edition of Personal Structures, how the project started years ago and its main aim and values (Galerie Myrtis feature at 1:46)
Presenting the 2022 ECC Awards
Like every edition, the European Cultural Centre presents the ECC Awards to commemorate the closing of the exhibition and to honour the participants that haven taken part in it
During the Closing Event on Sunday 27th of November, 2022, ECC Italy announced the winners and special mentions of this year’s ECC Awards, which were carefully selected by the European Cultural Centre curatorial team. The winners received the unique award of the artwork “1 meter” by the Dutch artist René Rietmeyer, initiator of the project Personal Structures and of the European Cultural Centre itself. The nominees were selected for the categories of: painting and mixed media, sculpture and installation, photography, video and digital art, and university research projects and lifetime achievement.
Tawny Chatmon (b. 1979, Tokyo, Japan) is a self‐taught, award‐winning artist who has been working in the field of photography for more than 17 years. The primary theme that drives Chatmon’s practice is celebrating the beauty of black childhood. She is currently devoted to creating portraits that are inspired by artworks spanning various periods in Western Art with the intent of bringing to the forefront faces that were often under‐celebrated in this style of work.
Museum Collection:
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Microsoft Corporate Collection
Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art
University of Maryland Global Campus
Larry Cook (b. 1986, Laurel, Maryland) is an award-winning photographer and conceptual artist whose work spans installation, video, and photography. Cook’s work explores the cultural aesthetic of “club” photography to examine how urban culture and incarceration systems become entwined through backdrops. The backdrop is central for its relationship to the formal, social, and cultural aspects of photographic history.
Museum Collections:
Baltimore Museum of Art (promised gift)
Museum of Modern Art
Harvard Art Museums
Morel Doucet (b. 1990, Pilate, Haiti) is a Miami‐based multidisciplinary artist and arts educator that hails from Haiti. He employs ceramics, illustrations, and prints to examine the realities of climate‐gentrification, migration, and displacement within the Black diaspora communities.
Museum Collections (selected):
Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM)
UK Contemporary Art Society, Plymouth Box Museum
Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art
Monica Ikegwu (b.1998, Baltimore, Maryland) is a figurative painter. She presents her ideas of the figure in a way that is not only captivating, but also unconventional in her use of color, texture, and composition.
Museum Collection:
Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African
American Art
M. Scott Johnson (b. 1968, Inkster, Michigan) is a New York City‐based artist and educator, has carved out a legacy as one of the most stimulating and unique artists of his generation. M. Scott has explored, both in his practice and through his 20‐year visual arts teaching residency at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, New York, a rich vision of contemporary Afro‐aesthetics.
Museum Collections:
The Hampton University Museum
The Schomburg Center Research in Black Culture
Embassy of Oslo Norway, Arts in Embassies Program
Delita Martin (b. 1972, Conroe, Texas) is a master printmaker, illustrator, and painter based in Huffman, Texas. Through the weaving of history and storytelling, Martin offers a new narrative on the power of women whose stories are not only layered in textures and techniques but also symbolism.
Museum Collections (selected):
Crystal Bridges Museum
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Minnesota Museum of American Art
National Museum of Women in the Arts
Library of Congress
The Studio Museum in Harlem
Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African-American Art
Arvie Smith (b.1938, Houston, Texas) transforms the history of oppressed and stereotyped segments of the American experience into lyrical two‐dimensional master works.
Museum Collections (selected):
Delaware Museum of Art
Hallie Ford Museum of Art
Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art
Portland Art Museum
Reginald F. Lewis Museum
Felandus Thames (b. 1974, Jackson, Mississippi) is a conceptual artist living and practicing in the greater New York area. Thames’ work attempts to transcend didacticisms that are typically associated with anachronistic understandings of representation and instead aligns itself with ideas around the taxonomy of human difference.
Museum Collections (selected):
Aspen Museum of Art
Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art
Smith Robertson Museum
Studio Museum of Harlem
Myrtis Bedolla is the owner and founding director of Galerie Myrtis, an emerging blue-chip gallery and art advisory specializing in twentieth and twenty-first-century American art with a focus on work created by African American artists. Bedolla possesses over 30 years of experience as a curator, gallerist, and art consultant.
Established in 2006, the mission of the gallery is to utilize the visual arts to raise awareness for artists who deserve recognition for their contributions in artistically portraying our cultural, social, historical, and political landscapes; and to recognize art movements that paved the way for freedom of artistic expression.
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.
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
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 ″
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
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.