VICTOR EKPUK’s solo “These Moments” reviewed in The Washington Post

Washington Post ~ In the galleries: Powerful messages that require few words

By Mark Jenkins May 25, 2017

 Victor Ekpuk’s “Still I Rise,” acrylic on paper, on view in “These Moments,” through May 31 at Morton Fine Art. Some of the pieces in the D.C. artist’s show were inspired by his recent four-month residency in his homeland of Nigeria. (Victor Ekpuk/Courtesy Morton Fine Art)

Some of the pictures in Victor Ekpuk’s “These Moments,” like his earlier ones, feature ideograms derived from Nsibidi, an ancient African writing system. But the most forceful piece in the Morton Fine Art show contains just one symbol: a crosshairs bull’s eye over a faceless man’s heart. The figure in “Still I Rise” is on his knees with his hands up, one in a gesture of surrender, but the other clenched into a fist. The D.C. artist is thinking not of his native Nigeria, but of places such as Ferguson, Mo. 

Other pieces were inspired by Ekpuk’s recent four-month residency in the land of his birth, where he was struck by local idioms in which “head” refers to a person’s mind or mood. That resulted in several sculptural paintings, all titled “Head” plus a number, on shaped wood panels. Ekpuk has a strong graphic sense, and snipping his images to their essential outlines gives then even more punch.

In the nearly all-red “Head 2,” Nsibidi characters fill the face and neck, suggesting someone stuffed with thoughts. Yet there’s less text in these artworks than in previous groupings, and it’s sometimes pitted against elementary geometry, such as the horizontal stripes of “Head 7.” Executed mostly in black and red, with deep blue as an occasional counterpoint, these drawings and paintings are strikingly direct. “Still I Rise” is the only one that could double as a protest placard, but all are as immediate as street posters.

Victor Ekpuk: These Moments On view through May 31 at Morton Fine Art, 1781 Florida Ave. NW. ­202-628-2787. mortonfineart.com.

Click HERE to view available artwork by VICTOR EKPUK.

VICTOR EKPUK’s solo exhibition “These Memories” at Morton Fine Art

These Moments : A solo exhibition of mixed media artwork by VICTOR EKPUK

Friday, May 12th – May 31st, 2017

 

EXHIBITION LOCATION

Morton Fine Art (MFA)

1781 Florida Ave NW (at 18th & U Sts)

Washington, DC 20009

HOURS

Tuesday – Saturday 11am – 6pm

Sunday 12pm-5pm

VICTOR EKPUK, Portrait Series #8, 2015, 48″x48″, acrylic on canvas

VICTOR EKPUK, Head 4, 2015, 45″x48″, acyrlic on panel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About VICTOR EKPUK & These Moments 

What can one say about an artist like Victor Ekpuk? Graphically stunning, with a carefully crafted use of color, and evincing a commitment to the power of the line, Ekpuk’s work in These Moments applies Ekpuk’s enviable skill, theoretical grounding, and consistent engagement with what it means to be human in a more figurative approach. These Moments highlight thirteen works all grounded by the form, structure, and strength of the bold line’s arc through space. Inspired in part by a four-month residency in Nigeria, the country of his birth, Ekpuk was struck by how central the head was in daily life in Lagos. Ekpuk explains that he was “struck by people carrying things on their heads, metaphorically or otherwise.” – Izetta Autumn Mobley, 2017

These Moments marks VICTOR EKPUK’s third solo exhibition at Morton Fine Art.  His artwork is included in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution Nation Museum of African Art, Brooks Museum, Krannert Art Museum, US Department of State, Newark Museum, Arkansas Art Center, Fidelity Investments,  The World Bank, and University of Maryland University College Art Collection.

 

Click HERE to view available artwork by VICTOR EKPUK.

 

VICTOR EKPUK, At the Water’s Edge, 25″x19″, ink, graphite and pastel on paper

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

VICTOR EKPUK “Drawing Memory : Essence of Memphis” at Brooks Museum

Drawing Memory: Essence of Memphis

Currently On View

Exhibition Overview

Victor Ekpuk, a Nigerian American artist, painted a mural for a new gallery, Arts of Global Africa, in March 2017. His art is inspired by nsibidi, a sacred means of communication among male secret societies in southeastern Nigeria. Evolving out of the graphic and writing systems of nsibidi, Ekpuk’s art embraces a wider spectrum of meaning to communicate universal themes.

“The subject matter of my work deals with the human condition explained through themes that are both universal and specific: family, gender, politics, culture and identity,” said Ekpuk.

The 58-foot mural is the beginning of the renovation of Arts of Global Africa, which will culminate in fall 2017.

“We are thrilled to be reinstalling the African Gallery with Drawing Memory as the centerpiece. Victor has been an artist in residence at museums across the country and visitors have been inspired and deeply moved by watching him work,” said Chief Curator Marina Pacini.

Ekpuk’s artworks are in such collections as the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African Art, Newark Museum, The World Bank, Hood Museum, Krannert Art Museum, United States Art in Embassies Art Collection and Fidelity Investment Art Collection.

 

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Sponsors

Jimmy Humphreys
Brooks Museum League

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NATE LEWIS in Hyperallergic

Artist NATE LEWIS was featured in a recent review on Hyperallergic.

The Body as a Field for Graphic Experiments

A show in Harlem takes on the human form with some surprising results.

Seph Rodney

Nate Lewis, “Uninhibited Movements” (2016), hand sculpted paper photo print, 40 x 26 inches (all images courtesy Art in Flux Harlem)

It’s difficult to surprise art audiences with figurative work these days. But at a new exhibition at Art in Flux Harlem, Terrestrial Resonance, I see work that genuinely astonishes me. Nate Lewis’s “Uninhibited Movements” (2016) and “Conductor II” (2017) both are hand sculpted paper photo prints that meld the material of the photographic paper and the body depicted on that paper to work together as a field of graphic and textural exploration. Lewis, delicately and with a staggering degree of detail, makes cuts into the underlying image of a nude black male body in “Uninhibited Movements” to create a landscape that is tattooed with patterns like waves, a flock of birds wheeling in the night sky, or tribal beadwork incised into the skin. The picking done to create these vistas is so fine that I bounce back and forth between admiring the metaphor of the body as canvas for the decorative impulse and admiring the facture of the work.

To see the rest of the article, click HERE.

To see more of NATE LEWIS’ works, visit his page on our website HERE

New Artwork by KATHERINE HATTAM

KATHERINE HATTAM, A Week in Late Summer, 2017, 12″x10″, mixed media on linen

KATHERINE HATTAM, Dogs and Creek, 2017, 17″x12″, gouache on panel

KATHERINE HATTAM, Mother and Child, 2017, 12″x10″, mixed media and oil on linen

Looking at these recent Walking Tracks/Dog paintings, sometimes I think inside every figurative artist there’s an abstract artist insisting on being let out; at other times it seems simply that the division between abstraction and figuration is a false one – we are all hybrid – a bit of both.
-KATHERINE HATTAM

KATHERINE HATTAM’s artwork can be found in numerous prominent permanent collections in Australia including the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Bendigo Art Gallery, Warrnambool Art Gallery,Mornington Art Gallery, Minter Ellison Collection, Grafton City Art Gallery,National Bank of Australia, Potter Warburg Collection, Bankers Trust Collection, Queen Victoria Hospital Collection, Box Hill City Art Gallery, George Patterson Collection, Smorgon Collection,The Darling Foundation, Hamilton City Gallery,
Heide Museum of Modern Art Art Gallery of NSW, Queensland University of Technology, Art Gallery of SA, Artbank, Queensland Art Gallery, RACV Collection, University of Queensland and LaTrobe University (LUMA).

Available artwork by KATHERINE HATTAM.