Exhibitions

There Within Lies the Gospel

There Within Lies the Gospel: Truth

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.

Featured artists: Tawny Chatmon, Wesley Clark, Morel Doucet, Monica Ikegwu,M. Scott Johnson, Delita Martin, and Felandus Thames.

view artwork

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

Exhibitions

Morel Doucet – Water Grieves in the Six Shades…

Morel Doucet – Water Grieves in the Six Shades of Death
May 20 – July 15, 2023

Opening Reception
Saturday, May 20th, 6:00 – 8:00 pm

Artist’s Talk
Saturday, July 8th, 5:00 – 7:00 pm

view artwork | video | statement | bio | resume | press

Galerie Myrtis is pleased to announce Morel Doucet’s solo exhibition Water Grieves in the Six Shades of Death. The opening reception will be held at Galerie Myrtis, 2224 North Charles Street, Baltimore, Maryland on Saturday, May 20th from 6:00 ‐ 8:00 pm. The opening is free, and all are welcome. No appointment is necessary to attend.

“In Haitian American Morel Doucet’s first solo exhibition at Galerie Myrtis, ‘Water Grieves in the Six Shades of Death,’ the multidisciplinary artist investigates critical issues of environmental racism and displacement of Black and Brown people from their homes, particularly those living in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood. Doucet deploys ceramics, colorful silhouettes of Little Haiti residents, indigenous birds, impressions of native flora and fauna, and decorative ironwork salvaged from demolished dwellings to explore the impact of climate change and developers on this marginalized community.” – Myrtis Bedolla

Morel Doucet
Black Maiden in Veil of Midnight, 2022
Slip-casted white earthenware
12.5 x 8.5 x 16 ″

Art Fairs

Context Art Miami 2022











1 Herald Plaza, Miami, FL 33132, USA
Booth #A3

TICKETS & INFORMATION

Galerie Myrtis announces our participation in CONTEXT Art Miami featuring new works from Tawny Chatmon, Morel Doucet, Monica Ikegwu, Megan Lewis, Delita Martin, and Felandus Thames at Booth A3.

Fair Hours
(VIP Preview) Tuesday, November 29 — 6:30pm – 10pm
Wednesday, November 30 — 11am – 7pm
Thursday, December 1 — 11am – 7pm
Friday, December 2 — 11am – 7pm
Saturday, December 3 — 11am – 7pm
Sunday, December 4 — 11am – 6pm
TICKETS & INFORMATION

Exhibitions

The Afro-Futurist Manifesto: Blackness Reimagined – PRESS

PRESS

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

Press

Morel Doucet – PRESS

PRESS

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


Adventura Magazine, June 2021
Portraits of Resilience” at MOCA North Miami

…His artwork celebrates the uniqueness and beauty of the African diaspora within Miami’s historically African American neighborhoods—Little Haiti, Overtown, Allapattah, and Liberty City—and over the past several years, Doucet has gathered various flora and fauna from these communities to create ecological drawings in the forms of abstract portraiture of the residents that live in these districts.s. full article


Miami New Times, April 2021
Morel Doucet Harnesses the Political Power of Art by Carolina Del Busto

On any given day, you can find Morel Doucet in his studio at the Bakehouse Art Complex in Wynwood. In fact, the artist spends so much time in his studio that he has a stationary exercise bike in the back of the room. full article


Biscayne Times, February 2020
Environmental Colors [featuring Morel Doucet] by Elisa Turner, BT Contributor

Danger is embedded in these deceptively decorative objects. They are seductive and deadly serious, surreal and grotesque. Ceramic art by Haitian-born Morel Doucet was never meant for your grandmother’s china cabinet. full article


Miami New Times, November 2019
Five Young Artists to Watch During Miami Art Week 2019 [featuring Morel Doucet] by Suzannah Friscia

As an overwhelming number of artists, shows, and events flood into town for this year’s Miami Art Week, figuring out what to do is no easy task. Though the best-known names are sure to be the biggest draw, don’t forget to look out for up-and-coming talent to get a glimpse of where the art world is heading. full article


press-city-pressCity Paper, December 14, 2016
ESCAPE TO MIAMI: Baltimore goes to Art Basel

Galerie Myrtis – SPECTRUM ART FAIR: On the mainland, in Wynwood, Galerie Myrtis efficiently uses nearly every inch of its space, located in a breezy, visible spot near the back at Spectrum, showing work by Delita Martin, Morel Doucet, Anna U. Davis, Michael Gross, Ronald Jackson, and Jamea Richmond-Edwards. This is Myrtis’ first time at this fair – full article


Exhibitions

The Afro-Futurist Manifesto Blackness Reimagined – Venice Biennial

The Afro-Futurist Manifesto: Blackness Reimagined

2022 Venice Biennial Art Exhibition
April 23 – November 27, 2022
Palazzo Bembo, Venice, Italy


Photo by Matteo Losurdo

artwork | artists & curator | curatorial statement | artist talk | press | installation photos


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

VENUE
Palazzo Bembo
Riva del Carbon # 4793
30124 Venezia, Italy


Galerie Myrtis thanks the following sponsors

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)

YouTube player



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.


see list of other recipients.

Artist

The Afro-Futurist Manifesto Blackness Reimagined Meet the Artist and…

Pastoral Scenes, Ralisha (detail) by Tawny Chatmon
On The Other Side Of Landscape Series #1 (detail) by Larry Cook
After All That We Still Stand When Black Lives Look Blue no.12 (detail) by Morel Doucet
We Outside (detail) by Monica Ikegwu
Tutnese Incantation, High John the Conquer & Deodate by M. Scott Johnson
Visionary (detail) by Delita Martin
Preach It (detail) by Arvie Smith
Door of the Cosmos by Falandus Thames
previous arrow
next arrow
 



Meet the Artist & Curator


Tawny Chatmon, Artist
view resume

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, Artist
view resume

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, Artist
view resume

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, Artist
view resume

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, Artist
view resume

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, Artist
view resume

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, Artist
view resume

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, Artist
view resume

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, Curator
about myrtis

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.

Artist

UTA Artist Space – Literary Muse

UTA Artist Space in collaboration with Galerie Myrtis presents
Literary Muse curated by Myrtis Bedolla

Opening Reception: Saturday, September 4, 2-5PM
UTA Artist Space
403 Foothill Rd. Beverly Hills, CA 90210

utaartistspace.com


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

Artist

Morel Doucet – Artwork – Sculpture

Morel Doucet

art | video | statement | bio |resume

mixed media | sculpture

Sculpture

Renaissance: Noir at UTA Artist Space, Beverly Hills, CA…

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.

view the 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.