ARC Magazine: Morton Fine Art presents ‘Timeless Remnants’ featuring Maya Freelon Asante, GA Gardner and Choichun Leung

 

 

Morton Fine Art presents ‘Timeless Remnants’ featuring Maya Freelon Asante, GA Gardner and Choichun Leung

By ARC Magazine Sunday, September 21st, 2014

The abstract artwork in Timeless Remnants combines elements of “inherited” collective memory consisting of pre-existent forms and each artist’s individual experience of life, colored with her/his unique culture, personality and life events. The featured artists (including Maya Freelon Asante, GA Gardner, and Choichun Leung), hail from varied countries of origin, and bring forward bountiful travels and experiences from around the world. The exhibition opens September 26th and will be available to view through to October 17th, 2014. Read more on the exhibition and artists below:

Jung stated that “in addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature…there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually, but is inherited”. Timeless Remnants explores that which resonates within the collective and individual memory and aims to elicit universal emotional response through techniques of script, mark making, composition, palette, texture, layering, energy and tensions present in the artwork.

About Maya Freelon Asante (Chapel Hill, b. USA): Maya Freelon Asante is an award-winning artist whose artwork was described by poet Maya Angelou as “visualizing the truth about the vulnerability and power of the human being,” and her unique tissue paper work was also praised by the International Review of African American Art as a “vibrant, beating assemblage of color.” She was selected by Modern Luxury Magazine as Best of the City 2013 and by the Huffington Post’s “Black Artists: 30 Contemporary Art Makers Under 40 You Should Know“. Maya has exhibited her work nationally and internationally including Paris, Ghana, and US Embassies in Madagascar, Italy, Jamaica, and Swaziland. She has been a professor of art at Towson University and Morgan State University. Maya has attended numerous residencies including Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, the Kokrobitey Institute and Brandywine Workshop. She earned a BA from Lafayette College and an MFA from the School of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

About GA Gardner (Trinidad, b. Trinidad): Gardner’s work is a visual representation of the proliferation of media and information in contemporary society and the resulting cacophony of messages it engenders. The goal of his work is to dissect and neutralize the white noise found in these forms of media and create cohesive stories that integrate his cultural background as an immigrant from Trinidad and Tobago living and working in the USA. He presents a Caribbean aesthetic in his art by utilizing colors, textures, and environments as the lens through which he sees urban contemporary life in America, weaving his cultural identity back into the fabric of our society. GA Gardner began his professional art career in New York City, creating and exhibiting large format 3D computer fine art in 1996. Gardner studied fine art at San Francisco State University, California, from which he earned both his Bachelor’s of Arts and Master’s of Arts degrees. Gardner crafted mixed media art and animation at The Ohio State University, Columbus, where he earned a Ph.D. in Art Education in 1995. Gardner has served as a professor of art and animation at various universities, including William Paterson University (Wayne, New Jersey); University of the District of Columbia; and George Mason University (Fairfax, Virginia), and has been a lecturer at The Ohio State University.

About Choichun Leung (New York, b. UK): Leung’s “Diplopia” series of paintings occurred after losing partial eyesight in 2013 and living with double vision for a period of half a year. During this time, her perspective as a visual artist changed drastically – she no longer saw detail in objects clearly, had no spacial depth of vision, saw contrast and light intensely and sounds became more acute. Moving objects were blurry as her eyes could not synchronize to follow movement. The work in this series is an expression of what she experienced visually; when everything overlapped, and was blurry, intertwined and complex. Her “Diplopia” paintings are a record of the new way of seeing, which made her question her perception of reality of the senses, where loss created a new meaning of abstract impressions and color. She was raised in Wales, born to a British mother and Chinese father. Leung earned a degree in 3D design specializing in metalsmithing in the U.K., and later operated a metal studio fabricating her vessel designs and percussion instruments. Leung participated in the Ray Man Chinese Orchestra in London, performing Chinese classical and folk music. She later studied Buddhist Symbolism at the Yungang Caves Archaeological Site in China. This is her fourth exhibition at Morton Fine Art in Washington, DC.

Exhibition: September 26th- October 17th, 2014

Opening Night Reception: Friday, September 26th, 6pm-8pm Morton Fine Art, 1781 Florida Ave NW, Washington, DC 20009, United States

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ARC Magazine

ARC Inc. is a non-profit print and online publication and social platform launched in 2011. It seeks to fill a certain void by offering a critical space for contemporary artists to present their work while fostering and developing critical dialogues and opportunities for crucial points of exchange. ARC is an online and social space of interaction with a developed methodology of sharing information about contemporary practices, exhibitions, partnerships, and opportunities occurring in the Caribbean region and throughout its diasporas.

– See more at: http://arcthemagazine.com/arc/2014/09/morton-fine-art-presents-timeless-remnants-featuring-the-work-of-maya-freelon-asante-ga-gardner-and-choichun-leung/#sthash.TvTrmkOZ.dpuf

MAYA FREELON ASANTE & GA GARDNER’s artwork returns from 2.5 year loan to Art in Embassies

United States Embassy, Kingston, Jamaica

ART in Embassies Exhibition

This exhibition includes art by established and mid-career African American and Caribbean American artists. Works by masters of the first generation – notably Lois Mailou Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, and Sam Gilliam – offer a visual representation of the foundations of African American Art. Contemporary works by Lorna Simpson, GA Gardner, Maya Freelon Asante, Ruben Ubiera, and Kehinde Wiley illustrate influences from their predecessors and more recent developments.

Just as the Harlem Renaissance was taking shape in 1923, Lois Mailou Jones had her first solo exhibition in New York City. By the 1930’s her paintings, which incorporated African forms, helped to define the movement. Norman Lewis and Jacob Lawrence both grew up in Harlem, New York, during the Harlem Renaissance and into the Great Depression. The American government’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) created the Federal Art Project (FAP), which in 1938 opened the Harlem Community Art Center. Lewis and Lawrence both took classes at the center and later worked for the WPA. While with the WPA, Lewis worked alongside Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock, who would later be part of the abstract expressionist group. During this period Lewis’s paintings became more abstract and influenced generations to come. In the 1960’s, while influenced by the abstract expressionists, Sam Gilliam also became associated with the Washington color school artists. During the Civil Rights Movement, Lois Mailou Jones became influential in the Black Arts Movement. Like the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement included literature, music and theatre in order to redefine personal identity and self perception through solidarity, racial pride, and political involvement.

By the 1980s, many African American artists began thinking about their identity in a multi-cultural society. Lorna Simpson, born in 1960, was influenced by the Civil Rights Movement and the struggle for equality. Her art uses photographs and text to produce narratives that examine gender, identity and social dynamics. Contemporary works from the last decade diverge from the traditional themes of African American art. Their experience is different, drawing influences from various artistic legacies. Maya Freelon Asante calls herself and “artisvist,” an artist/activist. Her soaked tissue paper, bleeding with color, presents universal issues and personal memories through its reference to African American cultural traditions like quilt making. Caribbean American artists GA Gardner and Ruben Ubiera reflect on contemporary urban life and society by using visual language through a personal identity. Gardner uses his early life in Trinidad and Tobago to portray his current American surroundings through color and textures. Ubiera’s mixed media works present social commentary on the human struggle that can be felt through his technique and subject matter. Jo Anne Jones’ narrative paintings use ambiguous related imagery to convey the complexity of relationships. Kehinde Wiley paints heroic images of African American males using elements of portraiture associated with the paintings of European masters. Wiley alludes to history, race, class and power in contemporary youth culture and African-American identity.

These artists present aspects of African American experience, evoking themes of daily life, community, belonging, and history, through imagery which spans social issues of identity, gender, race, and the nature of relationships in contemporary life. Their aesthetic explorations and viewpoints have enriched the history of American art and continue to redefine it in the twenty-first century.

Imtiaz Hafiz, Curator, Washington, DC, April 2013

 

MAYA FREELON ASANTE (b.1982)

“In 2005 I discovered a stack of brightly colored tissue paper tucked away in my grandmother’s basement. After unfolding the tissue, I noticed that water leaked onto the paper and left an intricate stain. This event inspired a shift in my creative process. Since then I have worked with ‘bleeding’ tissue paper, witnessing its deterioration. Tissue Ink Monoprints are created by saturating the tissue paper with water, thus releasing the ink from the fiber; the tissue is then pressed on to a heavy weight paper, which absorbs the bright ink permanently. The Tissue Ink Monoprints represent a recorded history of formation, which pays homage to the stains it now bears.

I contemplate global issues of war, poverty, waste, ageing and beauty, searching for what fuels our desire to preserve or protect. Giving reverence to my ancestors and meditating on the beauty of now, my art represents the freedom to create challenging work with an objective of universal peace and understanding. The peace starts with the community in which I’m sharing my work; interaction is ever present and essential.”

Maya Freelon Asante attended The American University in Paris, France in 2004, and in 2005 received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Layfayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania. In 2007 Asante received her Master of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts.

Migration, undated, Tissue and ink, 29″x20″, Courtesy of the artist, and Morton Fine Art, Washington, D.C.

 

GA GARDNER (b. 1969)

“This body of work is a reconstruction and redirection of the energy resulting from the over saturation of media and its original intended target. My work is a visual representation of the proliferation of media and information in contemporary society and the resulting cacophony of messages it engenders. The goal of my work is to dissect and neutralize the white noise found in these forms of media; create cohesive stories that integrate my cultural background as an immigrant from Trinidad and Tobago living and working in the USA. I present a Caribbean aesthetic in my art by utilizing colors, textures, and environments as the lens through which I see urban contemporary life in America, weaving my cultural identity back into the fabric of our society.”

GA Gardner began his professional art career in New York City, creating and exhibiting large format 3D computer fine art in 1996. Gardner studied fine art at San Francisco State University, California, from which he earned both his Bachelor’s of Arts and Master’s of Arts degrees. Gardner crafted mixed media art and animation at The Ohio State University, Columbus, where he earned a Ph.D. in Art Education in 1995. Gardner has served as a professor of art and animation at various universities, including William Paterson University (Wayne, New Jersey); University of the District of Columbia; and George Mason University (Fairfax, Virginia), and has been a lecturer at The Ohio State University.

GA Gardner, PPS 107, 2010, Mixed media on wood, 24″x20″, Courtesy of the artist, and Morton Fine Art, Washington, D.C.

 

GA Gardner, PPS 100, 2010, Mixed media on wood, 24″x36″, Courtesy of the artist, and Morton Fine Art, Washington, D.C.

 

GA Gardner, Green City, 2010, Mixed media on wood, 40″x48″, Courtesy of the artist, and Morton Fine Art, Washington, D.C.

 

PLEASE CONTACT MORTON FINE ART FOR PRICING AND AVAILABILITY OF FEATURED ARTWORK.

http://www.mortonfineart.com

(202) 628-2787

New work by GA GARDNER

 

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