Artist x Artist Talk on Collage | Michael Andrew Booker, Lisa Myers Bulmash, GA Gardner and Amber Robles-Gordon

Video credit: Jarrett Hendrix

Morton Fine Art is pleased to announce Creating a New Whole, a group exhibition of collage artwork by Michael Andrew Booker, Lizette Chirrime, GA Gardner, Hiromitsu Kuroo, Lisa Myers Bulmash, Amber Robles-Gordon and Prina Shah. Ranging in techniques, approaches and materials—from quilting, tapestry, fabric, paint and appropriated mass media—the artists in Creating a New Whole exemplify collage’s invitation to what Myers Bulmash has recognized as “a process of purposefully taking things out of context.” Constructing new contexts, forms and wholes, these artists’ practices are frequently as generative as much as they are reparative, seeking to draw connections to what was absent or ignored in their elements’ original context(s). Creating a New Whole, will be on view from January 4 to February 4, 2023 at Morton’s Washington, D.C. space (52 O St NW #302).

Continuing quilting techniques practiced by their respective ancestors, Booker, Chirrime, Gardner and Shah work with resonant materials that speak to the past while enabling the past to speak to the present. Kenya-based, Shah’s personally charged materials include paper, saree, bindis and block printing which she vividly combines using textures, colors and forms, the sum total creating new narratives and perspectives for her inner voice. DC-based Booker is influenced by the coded and colorful history of quilts, referencing them as sign markers, shields, portals and gateways to help secure safe passage to a parallel utopic, afro-futuristic community, what the artist has called  “Afrotopia.” Intensely layering marks of fineliner pen, color pencil, collage and fabric, Booker conjures complex, multidimensional figurative works, his figures and forms cohereing together out of countless small acts. 

Mozambican artist Chirrime sources scrap materials from her environment and immediate communities, using fabric, burlap, rope, paint, beads, leather and more to produce dynamic collages that speak to African womanhood, and more broadly, the human condition. Slicing and collaging Western printed media, Trinidad and Tobago-based Gardner appropriates both content and practice, “creating false images and out-of-context narratives” that ironically and seductively mirror the Western world’s misrepresentation of people of color. Likewise taking a critical, redemptive eye to Western mass media, Myers Bulmash’s “Not Geo” series, a cutting play on National Geographic’s nickname, seeks to rehabilitate and restore to dignity the publication’s now notorious rendering of Africans and other non-Western people. 

Overall, a sense of construction charges the works in Creating a New Whole, whether that be the notion of renovating the present and past or extending out of the frame into sculptural dimensions. The latter can be seen in the sculptural geometric-like works of Robles-Gordon (pieces the artist recognizes as “temples, places of spiritual practice” and which reference her larger textile installations) and Kuroo, inspired by the tradition of origami in his native Japan, whose thickly layered applications of paint and canvas exist on the boundary between painting and three-dimensional art. 

Abidingly constructive in spite of their rigorous interventions, the works in Creating a New Whole end up with more than they started with as a matter of process. 

http://www.mortonfineart.com

GA GARDNER’s artwork featured in Moko – Caribbean Arts and Letters

CARIBBEAN ARTS AND LETTERS

Issue 6 – July 2015

From April 29 to May 3, Moko had the pleasure of attending the Bocas Lit Fest in Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago. It was an excellent opportunity to come face to face with several of the writers we have been fortunate enough to feature, but it was also exciting to talk to many new writers who we hope to publish in the future. We sincerely believe that our mission is a necessary one given the few spaces that our region’s writers and artists can truly call their own. That belief was reinforced by the numerous submissions we received for our sixth issue, our largest presentation to date.

In Moko Issue 6, Cuban painter Carlos Estevez shares with us “Plenilunio,” an arresting series of works that call to mind both da Vinci’s sketches and the gnosticism of Jorge Luis Borges’s fictions. GA Gardner of Trinidad uses his most recent collages to reconcile the universal aims of abstraction with his interest in exploring cultural identity.

Moko veteran Loretta Collins Klobah shares with us two more poems that weave together themes of love, humor and resistance. Brad Walrond and Jon Euwema both reach for the narrative epic in their lengthy poems, touching on themes of family, migration, loss, politics, and history. Victoria Brown’s memorable vignette of a Trinidadian school-day is sharpened by her sense for character and setting. Puerto Rican writer Lizbette Ocasio-Russe’s story-telling is marked by a sense of fluidity despite its episodic nature, and is told with a similar multi-lingual dexterity.

We are also pleased to feature Sharif El Gammal-Ortiz’s review of the recent documentary Poetry is an Island, creative non-fiction by Danielle Bainbridge, and a brief interview with British Virgin Islands artist Aragorn Dick-Read, who shares both the philosophy behind his striking metalwork as well as some hints regarding his next major project.

And some great news! Moko Co-Founder Richard Georges had the honour of being a finalist for the Hollick Arvon Prize this year! We have been awestruck by the poetry of the other finalists – especially Elliot Bastien, Shivanee Ramlochan, and the very deserving winner Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné, who we had the privilege of publishing in our very first issue. For now, we will content ourselves with anticipating first books by all the finalists! Speaking of first books, the young and effervescent Vladimir Lucien and his debut Sounding Ground has been a revelation, and the OCM Bocas judges felt similarly. Congratulations to all.

This labour of love continues to reward us and we hope Moko continues to bring some joy to you all. We remain open for submissions, and are pleased to announce that we will be welcoming two special guest editors for our next issue. A call for submissions for Issue 7 with more details will be posted next month.

– Richard and David.

 

Visual Art

Paintings by Carlos Estevez

“The moon not only brings about an essential cycle in our existence, but it also illuminates the deep corners of our minds. I hope to share my illuminated vision of life during a recent, particularly prolific period of my career.”

Collages by GA Gardner

“The result is now an explosion of information that is woven together by cultural lines and tells a story about how a group of people are identified, ignored, or celebrated in the media.”

Textiles by Aurora Molina

“Aurora Molina’s works are concerned with the objectivity of woman, presenting women as icons.  Her current work explores the passing of time and aging, and the great deal of importance celebrities play in our everyday life.”

Paintings by Niarus Walker

“The more I work on the series, the more the pieces take on a spiritual connotation as I delve deeper in to the media and the possibilities of meaning. How can a rusty piece of machinery become a spiritual symbol?”