Get to know the wall mounted sculpture creations of MFA’s newest artist partner, Seattle based LISA MYERS BULMASH, and her “Bought and Paid For” series.
“This triptych of altered books is mounted on antique washboards, exploring the American Dream as filtered through a Black and female lens. The series centers on the heart of that complicated dream: owning a home of one’s own.
A repeating image in the center niche unites the three books: a family photo of the artist’s brother, running into their childhood home. This image is layered over other buildings significant in the African American experience. The first shows a slave auction “house”; the second shows the childhood home of the artist’s mother; the third depicts the artist’s first home in the Northwest.”
Featured here “Bought and Paid For 1 (triptych)”, 24″x40″, altered books mounted on antique washboards. Scroll for details. Contact Morton Fine Art for additional information on Lisa Myers Bulmash and her powerful sculptural creations.
Lisa Myers Bulmash, Bought and Paid For #1 (triptych), 2020, 24″x40″, altered books mounted on antique washboards
(Detail)
Sculpture 1 of 3
Sculpture 2 of 3
Sculpture 3 of 3
Contact the gallery for additional information about LISA MYERS BULMASH.
Deeply inspired by her spiritual practice and surroundings in the Arizona desert, Kesha Bruce creates reflective and rich artworks intended to be visual landscapes to dream into in her solo exhibition We Can Birth Worlds.
About We Can Birth Worlds
Kesha Bruce’s work explores the complex connections between history, personal mythology, and magical-spiritual belief in the African diaspora. Her latest work is concerned primarily with exploring the ways vibrant color and abstract symbols can not only trigger powerful emotion but begin to conjure narratives.
Inspired by the belief that hand-made objects can be imbued with the spiritual energy and the intention of the maker, Kesha Bruce employs a labor-intensive creative process of dying, ripping, knotting and the cutting away of fabric to create each painting. The resulting pieced, patched, and assembled surfaces use repetition and pattern to hint at dream languages or perhaps hidden sacred texts.
A direct outgrowth of her daily spiritual practice, these new works are an effort to translate the expansiveness of the artist’s inner joy and reclamation of freedom into a visual language.
With We Can Birth Worlds, Kesha Bruce aims to create visual landscapes to dream into. Landscapes for present and future Black joy, possibility, and liberation.
About KESHA BRUCE
Born and raised in Iowa, she completed a BFA from the University of Iowa before earning an MFA in painting from Hunter College in New York City.
Kesha Bruce has been awarded fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), The Vermont Studio Center, The CAMAC Foundation, and the Puffin Foundation.
Her work is included in the collections of The Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture (14 pieces), The Amistad Center for Art and Culture, The University of Iowa Women’s Center, The En Foco Photography Collection, and MOMA’s Franklin Furnace Artist Book Collection.
Represented since 2011, We Can Birth Worlds is her seventh solo exhibition at Morton Fine Art.
Founded in 2010 in Washington, DC by curator Amy Morton, Morton Fine Art (MFA) is a fine art gallery and curatorial group that collaborates with art collectors and visual artists to inspire fresh ways of acquiring contemporary art. Firmly committed to the belief that art collecting can be cultivated through an educational stance, MFA’s mission is to provide accessibility to museum-quality contemporary art through a combination of substantive exhibitions and a welcoming platform for dialogue and exchange of original voice. Morton Fine Art specializes in a stellar roster of nationally and internationally renowned artists as well as has an additional focus on artwork of the African Diaspora.
Morton Fine Art
52 O St NW #302
Washington, DC 20001
Wed – Sat 12pm-5pm
Sun-Tues by appointment
**Hours are currently suspended to prevent further community spread of COVID-19. Virtual tours and detail images and video available upon request. We are still conducting business in a different and safe way.**
AMBER ROBLES-GORDON: THE FINE ART OF INTROSPECTION AND EXTROSPECTION
Exhibited at not one but two DC galleries, Amber Robles-Gordon is a captivating artist whose intricate, analytical work lends thought to how we as humans perceive our world, and our place in it.
Her works at her solo show at Morton Fine Art gallery, “Third Eye Open”, on display until May 20th, are an insightful introspective to an “internal conversation about the interconnectedness of human life”, and involves sacred geometry, self exploration, transit timing variation, and the expanse of the universe.
Amber Robles-Gordon, Third Eye Open. 2018
Ink drawing and Collage.
Her work is multilayered; upon first glance there is an overall image presented of cellular circles that contain significant amounts of patterned dark matter, or space, and then heavily layered nuclei that are brightly colored with strategically placed materials giving balance to the form. Then, upon closer inspection, one discovers tiny details, be they altering textures or hand drawn ink strokes, all seamlessly weaving their individualities into the cohesiveness of the piece. Her art is steeped in duality and the connection to divine feminine, an examination of what femininity means and how it is viewed in relationship to the masculine. Her spirals are comprised of bits of lace, portion of a blouse, lanyard reminiscent of childhood art endeavors, and other found materials that represent the realm of womanhood. The pieces spiral, reminiscent of kundalini energy, further enhanced by the subtle abstract snakes that are strategically woven into the tapestries.
Amber Robles Gordon, Kepler 19-c, 2018
36×36 in., mixed media on canvas
Courtesy of the artist
It is representational of the connectivity of all things: how we all come from dark, feminine energy, our lives a long spiral of events as we complete rotations up our axis and revolve around each other. Some pieces are complements by smaller rotational pieces, mimicking a planet that has many moons. One piece in particular, Kepler 19-c, alluding to the extra solar planet that was discovered due to the variation of transition of a previous exo-planet, Kepler 19-b. Disrupted data led scientists to discover the planet Kepler 19-c, whose gravitational pull had just enough force on the other planet to cause the variation and thus revealing itself. Galaxies and new planets are being formed every day, in this cyclical thing called life that we are just tiny specks in. As the saying goes, one drop has many ripples, and Robles-Gordon’s work exemplifies this.
Amber Robles-Gordon, Kepler 19-b Super Earth, 2018
36 x 36 in., mixed media on canvas
Courtesy of the artist
One thing that was also noted at Morton Fine Art was the connectivity and understanding held by the founder and chief curator, Amy Morton. Her respect and understanding of the work, and the care she undertakes to accurately represent her artists, is something of note and puts MFA on a tier above many galleries existing today. It is highly suggested to stay connected to MFA via their website and mailing list. They represent an exemplary roster of artists, especially artists of color, that are on the rise and are creating phenomenal art.
The artist and her work, Morton Fine Art Gallery. 2018
Robles-Gordon is also in a group show at Hemphill Fine Arts, titled “More or Less” that runs through June 9th. Her piece in that show, “International Realms”, explores her experiences as an Afrolatina navigating a patriarchal society. A paper collage on canvas, which is rectangular as opposed to her solo show’s circular works, from afar looks like a linear, abstract layering of a sunset and land. Up close, each layer has their own elements and color schemes that interact and coexist with each other. Filled with celestial bodies, textures of nature, flora, fauna, and of course, humans, the canvas contains reflective dualities hidden in the works that are only noticed upon intricate inspection. This creates an interesting balance that is interjected by long white bamboo-like stalks that span across the piece, giving the impression of one peeking into another world.
Amber Robles-Gordon, Interdimensional Realms
Paper Collage on Canvas, 2017
Amber Robles-Gordon is a DC native who is not just an artist but also an arts advocate and educator, creating and also giving back to her city. Check out more of her work at her website, amberroblesgordon.com.
Morton Fine Art is located at 1781 Florida Ave NW (at 18th & U Sts), Washington, DC 20009. “Third Eye Open” has been extended until May 20th. Hours are Tues-Sat: 11am – 6pm; Sun: 12pm – 5pm; Mon: by appointment.
Hemphill Fine Arts is located at 1515 14th St NW, Washington, DC 20005. “More or Less” runs through June 9th. Gallery hours are Tuesday – Saturday, 10am-5pm, or by appointment.
Enjoy these photos of KESHA BRUCE’s opening reception for “Sacred Liberation” during her Waaw Residency in Senegal in May 2018. Among many new sources of inspiration, Kesha’s fascination with the baobab tree became magically obsessive. The artist describes:
“The Baobab is the national tree of Senegal. I’d never heard of it until @kasiazudou sent me a picture of one that’s been carbon dated to be more than 6000 years old. I saw my first Baobab on my drive to Saint-Louis. They are absolutely eerie and otherworldly. I later found out they’re both feared and venerated for their magical abilities. I’ve been obsessed ever since.
Almost every tribe has a legend about the Baobab. In ancient times elders and community leaders would hold meetings under the baobabs so that the ancestors and spirits who live in the Baobab would guide them to make wise decisions.
And until recently, Griots, living historians who are keepers of historical records across generations, were buried inside Baobab trees.”
As the most immediate of the art elements, color powerfully impacts the viewer’s emotions. The colors in a work of art trigger inner responses that can range from visceral and subtle thoughts and feelings, to strong memories and psychological states. Whether bright and beautiful or subdued and minimalist, color calls attention.
This exhibition explores the ways that women of color use this commanding art element to convey meaning that is relevant to contemporary sensibilities of race, gender and subjectivity. Susan M. Holt, curator
Morton Fine Art: curator's notes 