NATE LEWIS featured in The Washington Post

In the galleries: A visual rallying cry against gun violence

By Mark Jenkins March 30 at 9:00 AM

 

Nate Lewis

One of Nate Lewis’s works on display at Morton Fine Art. (Courtesy of the artist and Morton Fine Art)

The photographs of nude African American bodies employed by Nate Lewis aren’t exactly blank slates. The local artist leaves some bodily details — eyes, fingers, nipples — in the pictures he transforms for “Hidden Tensions,” at Morton Fine Art. But Lewis complements the intact bits of flesh with intricate markings, cut into the black-and-white pictures and or added with white ink. The symbols suggest fabric motifs and ritual body paint, but the artist calls them “unseen tensions of the past, present and future.”

The patterns are both additions and deletions, as emphasized by one of the show’s most recent pieces. In “Palpable Memories II,” a ghostly figure is carved into a D.C. street shot from 2016’s Inauguration Day. Where the single-figure pictures are highlighted by white backdrops, this scene is crowded with people from across the political spectrum. And thus, of course, not-so-hidden tensions.

Hidden Tensions: Nate Lewis Through April 11 at Morton Fine Art, 1781 Florida Ave. NW. 202-628-2787. mortonfineart.com.

Click HERE to view available artwork by NATE LEWIS

KESHA BRUCE, VICTOR EKPUK & AMBER ROBLES GORDON speak at James A Porter Colloquium on African American Art – 2018 Schedule

WASHINGTON DC | HOWARD UNIVERSITY APRIL 6 – 8, 2018

Gala Ticket Page

Kesha Bruce, I Am A Black Ocean. 2017.  48 x 36 in Mixed-Media on Canvas.

The 29th Annual James A. Porter Colloquium on African American Art and Art of the African Diaspora

The 2018 Porter Colloquium, titled “Abstraction: Form, Philosophy, & Innovation,” will explore topics related to the history of abstraction in art across the African diaspora. It will offer a platform for new scholarship and artistic perspectives on abstract art by African American and African diasporic artists.

This colloquium will trace the progression and aesthetic influence of African art to figurative and non-objective abstraction. Another significant goal of the event is to investigate how artists use abstraction in terms design, innovation, and the introduction of new epistemologies by way of visual culture.

Among other notable presenters, the 29th Porter Colloquium will showcase Chakaia Booker, Valerie Cassel Oliver, Mary Lovelace O’Neal and Fred Eversly.

 Colloquium Location – Howard University College of Medicine

This year colloquium will be held at the Howard University School of Medicine 520 W St NW, Washington, DC 20059 3rd Floor.

2018 PROGRAM

 

April 6th Day 1

10:30 Opening Remarks

Day Moderator: Melani Douglass, Director of Public Programing, National Museum for Women in the Arts

11:00-11:50 Opening Lecture: “Freedom / Expression / Abstraction”

Nikki A. Greene, Assistant Professor of Art, Wellesley College

11:50-12:00 Q&A

12:00-12:50 LUNCH ON YOUR OWN

1:00-2:00 Collaboration from the Smithsonian’s American Art Journal: Washington Modernism and the Exhibition of Works by Negro Artists (1933)

“Toward a History of Washington Modernism: The 1933 Display of African American Art at the Smithsonian National Museum”

Charles Brock, National Gallery of Art – “Negro Artist exhibitions at the National Gallery, 1929-1933”

Michèle Gates Moresi, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture – “Herring, Porter, and Locke’s Perspectives on the 1933 exhibition”

Tobias Wofford, Virginia Commonwealth University – “How Children Became Modern: The Place of Students in the Exhibition of Works by Negro Artists and in Interwar Washington”

Seth Feman, Chrysler Museum of Art – “From Newspapers to Networks: Broadcasting Art of African Americans in the Nation’s Capital”

John A. Tyson, University of Massachusetts, Boston

Moderator: Tuliza Fleming, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

Organizer: Robin Veder, Smithsonian American Art Museum

2:00-2:15 Q&A

2:15-2:35 New Photographic Histories Presentation

Romi Crawford, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Visual and Critical Studies, School of the Art Institute of Chicago

2:35-3:20 Curator’s Panel: Curating African American Abstract Art

 

• Kevin Tervala, Associate Curator of African Art, Department Head, Arts of Africa, the Americas, Asia, and the Pacific Islands, Baltimore Museum of Art

• George N’Namdi, Founder, N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Art

• Evelyn Hankins, Senior Curator, Hirshhorn Museum

 

Panel Moderator: TBD

3:20-3:30 Q&A

3:30-4:00 New Art Histories of the African Diaspora Lecture

• Freida High W. Tesfagiorgis, PhD, Evjue-Bascom Professor Emerita, Department of Afro-American Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison

 

4:00-4:45 Concerning the Practice of Diaspora Artist Panel

• Kesha Bruce

• Victor Ekpuk

• Representative from the editorial team of MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora

Panel Moderator: Lanisa S. Kitchiner, Ph.D., Head of Education and Scholarly Initiatives, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution

4:45-5:00 Q&A

5:00 Floyd Coleman Lecture – Chakaia Booker 

“Back Ground Check”

6:30-8:30   Howard University Faculty Exhibition Reception, Howard University Blackburn Gallery

April 7th Day II

10:30 Opening Remarks

Day Moderator: Jessica Stafford Davis, Founder, The Agora Culture

11:00-11:15 New Media Artist Talk – Adrian Loving

11:15-12:15 New Art Histories Scholars Panel

• Zoma Wallace, MFA, Curator, DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities

• Melissa Messina, Independent Curator & The Mildred Thompson Legacy Project

• LeRonn P. Brooks, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Africana Studies, Lehman College, CUNY

Panel Moderator: TBD

12:15-12:30 Q&A

12:30-1:15 LUNCH ON YOUR OWN

1:30-1:40 The Impact of Edward Spriggs

• Margo N. Crawford, Ph.D., Professor of English, Department of English, University of Pennsylvania

1:45-2:15 Recalling a Legacy of Innovation: Defining the Frontiers of American Abstraction Artist Reflection

• Reflection by Mary Lovelace O’Neal

• Fred Eversley

2:15-3:15 Artist Panel: Materiality and Space

• James Maurelle

• Amber Robles-Gordon

• Gregory Coates

Panel Moderator:  Margo N. Crawford, Ph.D., Professor of English, Department of English, University of Pennsylvania

3:15-3:25 Q&A

3:30-4:15 James A. Porter Lecture

• Valerie Cassel Oliver, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

4:15-4:45 Trajectories Innovation Lecture – Torkwase Dyson

Closing Remarks

**Tentative Program open to minor adjustments.

Saturday Evening: GALA, Blackburn Ballroom

Gala Honorees

Lifetime Achievement Award

• Two-Dimensional: Mary Lovelace O’Neal
• Three-Dimensional: Fred Eversley

Humanitarian Award

• Edward Spriggs

James A. Porter Book Award

• Valerie Cassel Oliver

April 8th Day III

April 8 – Sunday

Studio Visit: Reginald Pointer, Associate Professor, Ceramics, Howard University

The Nation features VICTOR EKPUK’s work on Achebe’s book covers at Smithsonian

Ekpuk exhibits Achebe’s book covers at Smithsonian

Posted By: Evelyn Osagie On: March 7, 2018 In: Arts & Life, Life – The Midweek Magazine

 

As part of global celebration of the 60th anniversary of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Nigerian-American artist based in Washington, DC, Victor Ekpuk, will hold an exhibition featuring artworks used as book cover books, including TFA, in the United States.

The exhibition will hold at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art on March 15, 2018. The event will also feature a panel discussion featuring Prof Nwando Achebe – Jack and Margaret Sweet Endowed Professor of History at Michigan State University – Ekpuk and others.

Ekpuk’s art reflects his experiences as a global artist.  “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” says Ekpuk on his works.

His art, which began as an exploration of nsibidi “traditional” graphics and writing systems in Nigeria, has evolved to embrace a wider spectrum of meaning that is rooted in African and global contemporary art discourses.

Guided by the aesthetic philosophy nsibidi, where sign systems are used to convey ideas, Ekpuk re-imagines graphic symbols from diverse cultures to form a personal style of mark making those results in the interplay of art and writing.

Link to full article.

Click HERE to view available artwork by VICTOR EKPUK.

 

Delicious Line Reviews posts on ‘Weapons for Spiritual Warfare’ KESHA BRUCE

02 Mar 2018

Kesha Bruce: Weapons for Spiritual Warfare

Morton Fine Art

Reviewed by Stephanie Lee Jackson

The patchwork symbols arrayed in Kesha Bruce’s luminous paintings feel like scraps of ancient garments, rescued from a flood. Squares of canvas, paint-logged, layered, and worn, are assembled in combinations that evoke a half-remembered ritual.

Bruce’s iconography derives from Hoodoo, a West African spiritual practice which evolved in the Mississippi Delta as a result of the slave trade. She absorbed the tradition as a child, watching her grandmother drawing spells in the kitchen. Recurring symbols, such as a crossroads, hold specific meanings – dispersal, banishment – which shift with context, like words in a poem. The act of painting becomes the working of a rediscovered spell.

Her paint handling mirrors the Hoodoo use of body fluids in spell casting. The rich textures appear to emerge from generations of handling, with few intermediary tools. The largest paintings exude the determined authority of a heritage shattered and painstakingly reconstructed.

Follow the hyperlink to view all available artwork by KESHA BRUCE on our website!  Please contact us here at the gallery for additional information and acquisition details.  ‘Weapons for Spiritual Warfare’ is up through March 7th, don’t miss out!

The Washington Post reviews KESHA BRUCE ‘Weapons for Spiritual Warfare’

Until I Break Skin, 2018, dyed/painted fabric on un-stretched canvas, 96″x 96″

The artworks in Kesha Bruce’s “Weapons for Spiritual Warfare” are a form of ancestor worship. Each one of the tradition-rooted pieces in her Morton Fine Art show is “an answered prayer,” writes the African American artist, who divides her time between the United States and France.

Most of these collage-paintings are small and consist of four rough-edged fabric squares daubed with simple geometric forms. The X, Y, + and # shapes are elemental, but rendered loosely to give evidence of the artist’s hand, as well as offer a sense of spontaneity. The largest and most complex are “The Sky Opened for Her,” which is cross-shaped and fringed with streamers, and “Between Starshine and Clay,” whose top third consists of overlapping black squares. The former resembles a ceremonial robe, while the latter evokes a sweeping view of a village under a nighttime sky — a universe conjured from tattered scraps and unstudied gestures.

Reviewed by Mark Jenkins, March 1, 2018.

Kesha Bruce: Weapons for Spiritual Warfare Through March 7 at Morton Fine Art, 1781 Florida Ave. NW. 202-628-2787. mortonfineart.com.

Please follow the hyperlink to visit our website  for all available artworks by KESHA BRUCE, and contact us here at the gallery for additional information or acquisition details.