Sneak preview of artwork from Nigerian born artist VICTOR EKPUK’s solo exhibition “Hip Sistas in Flux : The Visual-Lingual Braid”, opening Friday May 1st at Morton Fine Art.
Where?
Morton Fine Art, 1781 Florida Ave NW (at 18th & U Sts), Washington, DC 20009
(202) 628-2787, mortonfineart@gmail.com, http://www.mortonfineart.com *Contact the gallery for available artworks*
When?
Friday, May 1st, 2015 from 6pm – 8pm
The artist will be in attendance.
All images copyright of the artist, Victor Ekpuk.
Contact MORTON FINE ART for available artwork by CHARLES WILLIAMS.
(202) 628-2787
mortonfineart@gmail.com
GA GARDNER’s GETTHRU, Thru Contemporary Arts exhibition in Cologne, Germany
At the opening reception for “People Textures Environment” in Cologne Germany, the first exhibition by Thru Contemporary Arts.
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Asian Uboikpa (Hip Sista) Series #10, 2015, acrylic on canvas, 60″x48″
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The central theme of Ekpuk’s work is the exploration of the relationships, challenges and responses to changes that characterize the human condition. Of particular interest to his artwork is Nsibidi, an indigenous African system of writing that employs graphic signs, and codes to convey concepts. Inspired by this ancient writings, forms in his works are reduced to basic essence resulting in new symbols or codes in script-like drawings that are used to express contemporary experiences. When combined with Nsibidi signs, these “scripts” also provide the background narrative to his compositions. Most often these narratives are better perceived when they are felt rather than read literally.
Victor Ekpuk’s artwork can be found in the permanent collections of the following noteworthy institutions:
Smithsonian Institution Nation Museum of African Art, Washington DC
The Hood Museum, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Newark Museum, New Jersey
The World Bank, Washington DC
University of Maryland University College Art Collection
The US Department of State
Asian Uboikpa (Hip Sista) series is an engagement of the aesthetics of women of African descent. This series of paintings and drawings started as exploration of the art of hairstyles and body markings: a form of self-expression among young women of southeastern Nigeria. It has expanded to acknowledge similar attitude towards body image and self-expression among young black women in the Diaspora. Asian Uboikpa in Ibibio language references proud young women or virgins, while Hip Sista is an African American idiom used to describe a highly fashionable woman.
Perhaps this attitude of proudly inviting a public gaze by being hip through changing one’s body image with elaborate hairstyles and body adornments is no coincidence. Through genetic memory, these African cultural practices continue to find expression among women of the African Diaspora.
The perpetual flux of the old and the contemporary, of Africa and the Diaspora and the persistence of cultural memory are the main considerations in these works.
Osi Audu
Contemporary Artist
SUNDAY, APRIL 19, 2015, 2 P.M.
Osi Audu focuses on the Yoruba concept of consciousness, which has both a physical and a spiritual dimension. In referencing the Yoruba sculpture known as ile ori (house of the head) in his works, Osi seeks to articulate this dual nature of being and conscious experience, which he traces to his childhood in Nigeria. He draws from his on-going experimentation with color and invites his audience to participate in a visual interactive experience.
– See more at: http://www.dia.org/calendar/event.aspx?id=4899&iid=#sthash.hrmpQzNj.dpuf
Please contact Morton Fine Art for available artworks by VICTOR EKPUK.
Morton Fine Art, 1781 Florida Ave NW, Washington, DC 20009
(202) 628-2787, mortonfineart@gmail.com, http://www.mortonfineart.com
April 18–August 2, 2015
Nigerian-born artist Victor Ekpuk is best known for his improvisational use of nsibidi, a form of writing with symbols associated with the powerful Ekpe men’s association of southeastern Nigeria. Ekpuk’s aesthetic engagement with nsibidi emerged during his fine art studies at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ife, Nigeria, where students were encouraged to explore the logics of pattern and design in indigenous African art forms. His fascination with nsibidi during these years—its economy of line and encoded meanings—led to his broader explorations of drawing as writing, and to the invention of his own fluid letterforms. As a mature artist, Ekpuk has so internalized the rhythm and contours of his “script” that it flows from his hand like the outpouring of a personal archive.
This exhibition was organized by Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and curated by Allyson Purpura. It was partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency. The exhibition’s presentation at the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, was generously supported by the Leon C. 1927, Charles L. 1955, and Andrew J. 1984 Greenebaum Fund and the Cissy Patterson Fund.
Hood Museum of Art
Dartmouth College
Hanover, NH 03755
603.646.2808
hood.museum@dartmouth.edu
23 April, Thursday, 12:30 p.m.
MEMBER EXCLUSIVE
Tour and Lunch with Artist Victor Ekpuk
Join artist Victor Ekpuk and Curator of African Art Smooth Nzewi for an intimate look at the artist’s installation in Lathrop Gallery, followed by lunch and discussion in the conference room. Registration is required. $25.00 per person. Open to current members. To register, call (603) 646-0414 or email Julie.Ann.I.Otis@dartmouth.edu. Space is limited.
24 April, Friday, 4:30 p.m.
ARTIST LECTURE
“Excavating Memories”
Victor Ekpuk, artist
Ekpuk will discuss how he mines historical, cultural, and social memories to shape his aesthetics.
25 April, Saturday, 11:00 a.m.
Second-floor galleries
SPECIAL TOUR
Auto-Graphics: Works by Victor Ekpuk
Allyson Purpura, Curator of African Arts at the Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and curator of Auto-Graphics, will lead a tour exploring the works on view and ideas behind the exhibition.
25 April, Saturday, 1:00–2:30 p.m.
FAMILY WORKSHOP
Experimenting with Line
Explore the expressive power of Victor Ekpuk’s line in his collages, digital prints, and supersized drawings. In the studio, make large drawings filled with your own symbols and line designs. For children ages 7–12 and their adult companions. Enrollment is free, but limited. Please register through the museum’s online calendar by April 23.
29 April, Wednesday, 6:00–8:00 p.m.
ADULT WORKSHOP
The Hand-Drawn Line: Works by Victor Ekpuk
Join this discussion-based workshop to explore how Ekpuk uses rhythm, pattern, scale, composition, and the hand-drawn line to create works that are at once bold and restrained. In the studio, experiment with materials to create your own work inspired by the exhibition. No previous art experience necessary. Participation is limited. Please register through the museum’s online calendar by April 27.
16 May, Saturday, 2:00 p.m.
INTRODUCTORY TOUR
Auto-Graphics: Works by Victor Ekpuk
26 May, Tuesday, 12:30 p.m.
LUNCHTIME GALLERY TALK
“Marks and Mark-Making in Afro-diasporic Art”
Michael Chaney, Associate Professor, Vice Chair, English Department, Dartmouth College
This informal presentation links both the contemporary artwork of Victor Ekpuk and traditional ukara cloths to an unlikely analog in the hybrid production of nineteenth-century slave artisan Dave the Potter. As with the strange writing inscribed on the sides of Dave the Potter’s jars, the coded writing system known as nsibidi opens up our understanding of diasporic art and the principles of communication embodied in it.
13 June, Saturday, 2:00 p.m.
SPECIAL TOUR
Auto-Graphics: Works by Victor Ekpuk
Smooth Nzewi, Curator of African Art
16 June, Tuesday, 12:30 p.m.
LUNCHTIME GALLERY TALK
“Memory and Victor Ekpuk’s Wall Drawings”
Smooth Nzewi, Curator of African Art
“Cappadocian Field Trip” and other abstract oil paintings by Andrei Petrov evoke erosion. (Andrei Petrov/Courtesy of Morton Fine Art)
NATALIE CHEUNG’s “Facsimile” and ANDREI PETROV’s “B.C./A.D.” reviewed in the Washington Post
Natalie Cheung & Andrei Petrov
Photograms and chemigrams are both forms of camera-less photography yet have a very different feel. Natalie Cheung illustrates the contrast with “Facsimile,” at Morton Fine Art. The smaller photograms, created by placing objects on photo paper and then exposing it, are hard-edged, black-and-white and essentially tidy. The chemigrams, painted with chemicals on photo paper, are larger and looser. The billowing black and red-brown forms suggest ink painting but also, at their most ominous, blood-
spatter patterns. One piece resembles a razor blade, dripping with black plasma. Even if it may not be what the Washington artist intended, these pictures are beguilingly dark, fluid and strange.
The abstract oils of Andrei Petrov’s “B.C./A.D.,” also at Morton, evoke glaciation, erosion and water seeping through rock. Such associations fit the Washington-born New York artist’s method: He both builds and subtracts from his paintings, scraping and sanding to achieve a hard-worked surface and compositions that feature seeming cracks and crevices. The colors include some bright blues but are mostly shades that suggest minerals. Although “Swiss Bliss” somewhat resembles a landscape, most of the works lack that picture’s sense of distance. Whatever it is that Petrov depicts, he puts the viewer very close to its center.
Facsimile: Alternative Process Photographs by Natalie Cheung and B.C./A.D.: Nature-Based Abstract Oil Paintings by Andrei Petrov On view through April 16 at Morton Fine Art, 1781 Florida Ave. NW. 202-628-2787. http://www.mortonfineart.com
When a Caribbean-based collection of international contemporary art comes to Cologne in April, organizers hope the exhibition will create an opportunity for cultural and artistic exchange, as well as allow the public to have a unique creative experience.
“Issues relating from the Far East to Western society are addressed, using everything from realistic to abstract approaches. The works chosen from the collection for this exhibition explore the use of space and culture, ” says visual artist GA Gardner, whose non-profit organization, GETHRU is behind the event.
Gardner formed GETHRU in 2014 in his Trinidad and Tobago birthplace to use the arts as a way to educate.
“After being in the USA for over 25 years and working as a professor, publisher, artist and education consultant to various universities, I wanted to continue to use art as a tool that can help educate and bridge economic gaps. I wanted to be involved with art activism in developing countries, so I founded GETTHRU,” said Gardner.
GETHRU’s first project, Thru Contemporary Arts, is sponsoring the Cologne exhibition. The project was made possible in part by a grant obtained through the Caribbean Museum Center for the Arts, and is designed to give developing nations greater access to contemporary art by managing and curating exhibitions of a public collection of international work.
“This is an international organization with affiliations with various countries including the USA, Asia, and Europe. However its message is one that will best benefit the people of developing regions such as the Caribbean, where access to an international body of contemporary art is limited. More is needed to educate these communities about the depth of contemporary art,” Gardner explained.
In addition to reaching underserved communities, Gardner saw the importance of connecting with other contemporary artists and their audiences. He says that while in talks for a solo show of his mixed media art in Cologne, he realized that he could use the opportunity to bring contemporary artists from Germany, Trinidad and Tobago, and other nations together. He worked on the idea with Judith Ganz, a contemporary artist and curator in Germany, who he said was very instrumental in facilitating the change in direction and in planning the exhibition.
Over 10 artists from Europe, the Caribbean, Asia and the U.S. will participate in the show, which is titled, “People Textures Environments,” and runs from April 11-19. The event will feature a wide body of work, including photography, installation art, paintings, collage, embroidery, sculpture and other mediums from the collection.
Among them are Gardner’s mixed media work, which discuss today’s media saturation and uses material that he collected on the streets of Berlin in 2014; Adele Todd, who uses embroidery to examine crime in Trinidad and Tobago; Ganz who paints surreal environments and Clary Estes’s photography, which is a visual dialog of the health care system in China.
Following the show, Thru Contemporary Arts will quickly be back on the road again. First up is an exhibition close to home in St. Croix, the U.S. Virgin Islands and then serving as host for the first Thru Contemporary Arts Week in partnership with the Art Society of Trinidad and Tobago. Further exhibitions in Europe are also being planned for this year. And, of course, the organization will remain focused on its mission.
“We continue to seek out new contemporary art for our permanent collection. This is the sauce as they say, the art. The quality and diversity in the permanent art collection will be our tool for providing an in-depth holistic contemporary art experience.”
For information about GETHRU and the exhibition in Cologne, Germany visit GETRHU.org
To read the article in full: http://euromight.com/article/thrucontemporary
Please contact Morton Fine Art for available artwork by GA GARDNER.
Morton Fine Art, 1781 Florida Ave NW, Washington, DC, USA
+001 (202) 628-2787
mortonfineart@gmail.com
Not That But This strives to be an expressive, critical, and experimental platform for the investigation, interpretation and freeform exploration of the contemporary art world, as well as the everyday aspects of modern life.
This artist collaborative provides a crazy, rigorous, outlandish, and dope collection of thought provoking positions on the arts and our world. It has been said, “That if you want something done you should do it yourself” and “any real change implies the breakup of the world, as one has always known it.” This is that something and that is this change.
Morton Fine Art: curator's notes 