Preserve your artwork by using archival mat board on prints, works on paper and other mediums

Preserve your artwork by using archival mat board on prints, works on paper and other mediums.   Archival framing begins by using acid-free materials, acid being one of the primary culprits contributing to the breakdown of paper as well as the fading of pigments. There are two types of acceptable archival papers: acid-free and 100% rag acid-free, with the latter, made from cotton or linen “rags,” being the highest quality. Using only acid-free materials takes potential problems into consideration, correcting for them before they occur. It is often just as easily done as conventional framing. How to recognize if your mat board needs to be changed out to archival materials?  Check for a rust-colored core of the mat board on your artwork. If present, this is a sure sign of acid which will, in time, erode both the artwork itself as well as the body of the mat.

 

 

MAYA FREELON ASANTE in Complex Magazine

 

15 Young Black Artists Making Waves in the Art World

BY DEANNA KIM

The beauty of art is that it’s constantly evolving and being pushed to new heights with each new generation of artists. A crop of young black artists, in particular, deserve to be on your radar, adding immeasurably to the artistic dialog with their unique visions and techniques.We’ve already covered under-appreciated black actors as well as some of the greatest black fashion designers, but now it’s time to show some love for talented young visual artists.

Hailing from Nigeria to Tennessee, ranging from sculptors to photographers, these 20 to 30-somethings are well on their way to making names for themselves in the ultra-competitive world of visual art. Some have been blowing up for a while now, others have been getting attention at prestigious art fairs, and others are being selected for highly publicized events like an art exhibition curated by Shaq. Read on to see 15 Young Black Creatives Making Waves in the Art World, just in time for Black History Month.

Maya Freelon Asante

Image via The Audacity of Color

Age: 32
Medium: Mixed media
Location: Baltimore

Asante comes from a family of artists (father Philip Freelon is an architect and mother Nnenna Freelon is a Grammy-nominated jazz vocalist), so it’s perhaps no surprise that she’s been making waves in the art world, too. Asante is best known for her assemblages of vibrantly colored tissue paper, through which she “explores the complexity and beauty of the world.”

Contact Morton Fine Art for available artwork by MAYA FREELON ASANTE. (202) 628-2787, mortonfineart@gmail.com, http://www.mortonfineart.com

Click here to read the article in full:

http://www.complex.com/style/2015/02/young-black-artists-to-watch/sadie-barnette

MAYA FREELON ASANTE, OSI AUDU & KESHA BRUCE Artwork featured in DC by Design Blog

http://dcbydesignblog.com/designers/guest-post-angela-belt-and-sheryl-scruggs/

Jennifer Sergent’s DC by Design Blog

Photo credits: Morgan Howarth

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Guest Post: Angela Belt and Sheryl Scruggs

I’m excited to have this guest post from stylist and writer Angela Belt, who’s in charge of the visual merchandising for Room & Board on 14th Street. I wrote a post on her own apartment last year, and in this post, Angela profiles an incredible kitchen transformation by designer Sheryl Scruggs, the owner of DC-based Bronze Interiors.

Take it away, Angela!

Sheryl is has a one-of-a-kind personality. When she talks, you listen—and watch, because she uses every part of herself to communicate an idea. When you ask Sheryl a question, she answers from her head to her toes with a response. I asked her if she has a background in theatre, and to my surprise she said no, because the way she moves is flowing and graceful, and everything is accentuated all at once. Sheryl, similar to her design, can be best summed up in this quote: “I’m sort of all over the place—I’m mosaic in that way.”

All photography copyright by Morgan Howarth

In our interview together, Sheryl and I discussed the vision behind this kitchen. “Its a jewel box, small and dramatic; it’s the perfect example of big is not always better,” she says. As the stylist for this photo shoot, I have to agree. The backsplash in this kitchen literally looks like gems.

The glass tiles in this backsplash have to be applied individually by hand—they don’t come prearranged on square sheets. Tedious work to say the least.

Sheryl reached out to me to style this kitchen because she wanted to get rid of the notion that kitchens are merely utilitarian, with a cabinet on every wall. She asked me, essentially, to bring the living room into the kitchen, without the decorative aspects taking away from its function and layout. This can be a tricky balancing act, because I love to layer elements in a room; pulling back and restraining myself was an intriguing challenge.

We sourced the accessories for this photo shoot from Daren Miller, the owner of  AndBeigein Adams Morgan. Sheryl wanted the objects in the kitchen to be white, metallic and sculptural, and the sculptural offerings from Miller’s boutique perfectly fit the ticket.

For the artwork, Sheryl and I collaborated with Amy Morton of her eponymous Morton Fine Art in DC, which focuses on African and African-American artists both here and abroad. Clients tend to think kitchens need cabinets on every wall, Sheryl says, but placing art on a wall or two is an unexpected surprise.

Bronze Interiors is about bold design, yet simple and refined in its execution. Based on these images of her recent kitchen remodel, I think you will agree!

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New Sculpted Paper Artworks by NATE LEWIS

Just arrived at Morton Fine Art – Washington, DC based paper sculptor NATE LEWIS’ latest artworks!

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Nate Lewis

(Washington, DC b. USA)

 

Artist Statement

Hidden from eyes, and below the surface of skin, our cells, organs, and body systems teeter between stability and instability. We can identify the disruption that has upset the balance through the use of various lenses. We can restore the balance by altering the anatomy through the use of surgical incisions.

Hidden within a single sheet of white paper, lies its dynamics of life.  With a blade, I play with its vulnerable construction; and through the surgical process, bring out its fragile, astonishing attributes.

Through a myriad of precise cuts, I carve, fold, and sculpt the paper, giving it new form that visually combines the aesthetics of drawing, sculpture, etching, embroidery and fabric. I developed this technique by regarding the blade as a pen.

I realized the blade was multifaceted and able to act on the unseen anatomy within a sheet of paper to create a new anatomy, multidimensional and intricate.

This approach stems from my nursing experience in caring for critically ill patients and their family members. In the Intensive Care Unit setting, I witnessed how tragedy and uncertainty brings about a sudden transparency and vulnerability between the patient, family members, and caregivers.  This experience gave me a vivid awareness of the thin line between living and dying. As a result, transparency and vulnerability became an urgent matter. By removing layers of fear, guilt, and shame that disrupts equilibrium and interferes with growth; and by cultivating meaningful relationships, I hope to encourage others to do the same.  Like my interaction with paper, the exchange between vulnerable subjects is fragile, mysterious, and beautiful.

 

Process

My process is fluid. I like my pieces to have a sense of freedom in themselves, not forcing them in a set direction. I start with a texture, that texture might give a certain appearance or evoke a certain feeling. I’ll often utilize two or three textures at a time. I attempt to bring an active transitional life to the pieces it can be subtle or harsh, emulating movement, growth, and destruction, decay. I enjoy the elements of structure and organization combined with chaos; it feels biological and at the same time emotional.

With certain pieces I transform the whole sheet of paper with a blade into various textures and finish the piece by cutting away certain areas. I like when the pieces become fragile,  an area may fall off of a piece because it becomes weakened from continuous cuts.

I often work on multiple pieces at the same time. At times, I work on a handful of pieces that all communicate with each other and I navigate each one based on the appearance and life of the others. I’ll let pieces sit for a few weeks and then revisit them.

Contact Morton Fine Art for pricing and availability. 

(202) 628-2787

mortonfineart@gmail.com

http://www.mortonfineart.com

LAUREL HAUSLER’s “No Trace of the Woman” – Exhibition opens 2/13/15

About NO TRACE OF THE WOMAN:

LAUREL HAUSLER creates paintings and sculptures of felted wool inspired by Frances Glessner Lee’s 1940’s dollhouse rendering of “Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death”, composite crime scene models recreated on a one-inch-to-one-foot scale. Inspired by Glessner Lee’s visionary and zealous passion for forensics in a time when women were unable to become detectives, Hausler selects needles and fiber as her medium to honor traditional notions of “women’s art” or “craft”, mirroring Glessner Lee’s own meticulous attention to detail, down to every last hand-crafted clue, of the “Nutshell Studies”.

About LAUREL HAUSLER:

A Washington, DC native, LAUREL HAUSLER’s love of literature, antiquity, unsolved mysteries and the obscure inspire the stories behind her work.  Working in a subtractive and additive process, she creates the surface of her felt sculpted paintings by layering strands of felted wool. Admired for resisting a self-conscious approach to process, Hausler reveals lines, veils and gestures on her surfaces that demonstrate her decision-making process through the work’s evolution to its finished state.

Red Shoes, 50″x50″, felted wool

Sunset, 36″x52″, felted wool embroidery thread

Lonelihearts, 40″x36″, wool felt, embroidery thread

Closet, 40″x40″, burlap and felted wool

Cheryl, 30″x 30″, wool, felt, and embroidery thread

1946, 20″x18″, felted wool

Sneak Peek of ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY’s “Self Conscious” – opening Friday 2/13/15

About SELF

            CONSCIOUS:

In this new series of work, ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY explores expressions of sadness, grief and loss. Inherently a  narcissistic and self conscious construct, COVEY challenges the concept of “selfie” to a level of artistic and universal impact. She uses her own face during times of personal internal grief to replicate the emotions she has seen on the faces of others during periods of loss. This body of work is comprised of a combination of painting, photography, and printmaking based on the quick capture of her image.

About ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY (Washington, DC b. South Africa):

ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. In a career spanning three decades she has exhibited internationally and received countless awards. Ms. Covey’s work is in many major museum and library collections, including the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the New York Public Library Print Collection, the National Museum of American History, Harvard University, the Papyrus Institute in Cairo and 512 works in the permanent collection of Georgetown University Library. There was recently a retrospective of Ms. Covey’s wood engravings and installation work on display at the Evergreen Museum in Baltimore.

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ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY filmed for Damel Dieng’s The One Art Project

 

ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY filmed for Damel Dieng’s The One Art Project. The One Art Project explores the meaning of art through a collection of video portraits of artists from around the world.

 

THE ONE ART PROJECT
“The thing itself is one, the images are many. What leads to a perceptive understanding of the thing is not the focus on one image but the viewing of many images together.” Rudolf Steiner

What is art? How is it so universal, and yet interpreted so differently by artists around the world? Why is it so important to all cultures around the world? Who are artists and why do they create? Who better than artists themselves to answer these fundamental questions? The One Art Project explores the meaning of art through a collection of video portraits of artists from around the world. By seeking artists’ profiles that are as diverse as possible across nationalities, cultural backgrounds and mediums, the project is also an exploration of humanity’s diversity through art. The goal of the project is to create a collection of at least a hundred portraits of artists from around the world. I hope this project contributes to a better understanding of art and what drives artists to embark on their creative endeavors. I hope it promotes art and motivates people to learn more about artists and their work. I hope it inspires artists and aspiring artists of all ages. I hope it also promotes the importance of learning from our differences and sheds light on the beauty and importance of diversity.

Damel Dieng Creator & Producer of The One Art Project

ABOUT THE FILMMAKER
Lucien Dieng aka Damel is an artist photographer and filmmaker based in Washington D.C. He started his career in visual arts in Dakar, Senegal in 2001 as a computer graphist in the first cartoon studio in West Africa. He worked for local tv stations, video production studios and as a freelancer in video editing, motion graphics, 2D and 3D animation and directing on a variety of projects. In 2007 he co-founded a local production company with a friend, which they ran successfully until 2011, when Damel moved to the US. In parallel Damel’s passion for photography grew steadily from his first shots in 2003 to his first exhibition  in 2010 during the Dakar Art Biennial in Senegal. Art has always been a passion for him. His self-taught background encouraged him into insightful conversations with artists and visual craft professionals. Such exchanges and his passion for filmmaking and storytelling ultimately led to the creation of The One Art Project.

VICTOR EKPUK in “Africa Now – Political Patterns” at Seoul Museum of Art in Korea

Africa Now: Political Patterns at The Seoul Museum of Art in Korea on until February 15th

On December 16^th 2014, the Seoul Museum of Art premiered its first major exhibit in Korea featuring over 20 African artists in, “Africa Now- Political Patterns”. This marks it as the first museum in Korea to introduce contemporary African Art. One could say that this exhibit serves as a platform to bridge the gap of representation of the Diaspora in the realms of a socio-political statement. The exhibition features an array of artists like Yinka Shonibare, MBE and Kehinde Wiley that examines how identities are shaped by intersectional patterns of race, gender and socio-political economics. It also conveys an immigrant experience of living in North America or Europe.

Yinka Shonibare MBE’s contributes a variety of art froms, sculptures, installation as well as photography. His sculpture, Earth (2010) is a life-sized mannequin that will make you stop in your tracks due to the striking stance, which is donned in the vibrant Dutch fabrics of Europe but immensely associated with African identity. The globe enhances the theme of cultural discovery and education implicating a bridge of cultures in one figure by itself. The piece stands out due to its striking complexity grounded in nature, masculinity and globalization and maybe even appropriation.

In Kehinde Wiley’s work, his most popular themes are examining masculinity in history from painting mostly men in grand historical portraits with flower- patterned background. In Africa Now, two portraits stand out, Kingston parade: Alexander I, Emperor of Russia, after Gerard’s 1817 painting and Urban identity: another new painting by Wiley of China Samantha Nash where he continues to challenge the faces of history in western paintings by replacing them with faces of color and instead of women it’s men. It is clear that he is challenging the roles of race and class in regards to how people of color are represented. He consistently plays with power juxtapositions by stretching the cultural and political implications while craving out an array of identities.

In whole, this exhibit seeks to examine the scope of the African Diaspora through slavery and imperialism, and attempts to question postcolonial concepts. This exhibit is extremely important right now due to its awareness of issues that stem socio-politically in global market in Korea.

Africa Now: Political Patterns is on view at the Seoul Museum of Art until February 15^th 2015.

 

To view the article in full please visit: http://aadatart.com/africa-now-political-patterns-seoul-museum-art-korea-february-15th/