BOOKS
“I Can’t I Won’t I Will I Do Solo Show Opening At ReflectSpace Gallery!
I am thrilled to have a solo exhibition at ReflectSpace Gallery, part of Glendale Arts and Culture, which opened Saturday January 28th and is on view through March 19,2023.
The show, a dream come true that I did not even know I had, was curated by the wonderful Ara and Anahid Oshagan of The City of Glendale.
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Beautiful show video by Jennifer Remenchick, artist, writer, videographer and exhibition installer.
The opening was warm, wonderful and wild!
Our ReflectSpace-published artist book: “Concurrencies Charlotte Salomon, and Eva Hesse Genius, Trauma and the Creative Imagination”.
I was moved and surprised by flowers sent by my family, and a certificate presented by Senator Anthony L. Portantino!
Stacie B. London, exhibition designer and installer extraordinaire…and esteemed colleague.
Artist colleagues Laurey Bennett Levy and Rebecca Youseff
The very colorful artist and animator Michelle Robinson
Beloved artist and curator friend, Frida Cano
Frida and Mick
Dear friend and actor extraordinaire, Suzanne Voss
Long-time no-see friend Rayne with Mark
Mark and I hanging with the beautiful Anahid Oshagan, curator and lawyer, and Glendale Mayor Ardy Kassakhian
I was honored to receive a City of Glendale Certificate of Recognition, presented by Senator Anthony L. Portantino!
Glendale Mayor Ardy Kassakhian and Senator Anthony L. Portantino!
Director of Glendale Library Arts and Culture Gary Shaffer, Mon Cher Mark, Curator Anahid Oshagan, and Glendale Mayor Ardy Kassakhian
What a line-up!
Exhibition Designer Stacie B. London, Curators Ara Oshagan and Anahid Oshagan, Director of Glendale Library Arts and Culture Gary Shaffer, Glendale Mayor Ardy Kassakhian, Mark, myself, and Senator Anthony L. Portantino and esteemed City of Glendale colleague!
“Objects of Agency” Presented by the Hera Gallery
The Hera Gallery is excited to announce the opening of the virtual exhibition Objects of Agency. Objects of Agency is a 52 week long virtual exhibition, through 2023. The exhibition addresses the health care crisis which has recently culminated in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and stripped thousands of people of the right to bodily autonomy.
Visit Heragallery.org and their social media pages to view the exhibition and stay tuned for upcoming events and programming.
I am proud to have my work, “Excavation of the Interior” included in this important and timely exhibition.
Inspired by the form of the book, my work traverses tapestry, installation and sculpture to push familiar forms into works that arrest and baffle, while simultaneously offering places of contemplation and solace. Working both as a solo practitioner and in the public sphere of community engagement, I aim to invite altered ways of viewing the world and how we inhabit it, to instigate exploration and examination of what we think we know and are.
The evocative, visceral and physical quality of materials drives my work and gives it its emotional resonance and relevance vis a vis how they are used. I am compelled to layer, wrap, stitch, knot and glue as well as paint, draw and write, layering, disrupting and complicating the surface to add levels of meaning. Often, the meaning or intent becomes clear only during or after this process, as if it had been there all along and simply surfaced during the act of making.
Excavation of the Interior, 2021, 12 x 28 x 12.5″.
“Excavation of the Interior” is a sculpture drawing parallels between the structures of the book, built environment and body made of wood, mulberry paper, canvas, muslin, watercolor paper, hemp cord and linen thread. It stands upright in any degree of opened/closed. Open, it can span up to 28″ wide.
The Center for Contemporary Art 2022 International Juried Show
I am thrilled to participate in the Center for Contemporary Art’s
International Juried Exhibition
showing “Maximum Security”
made of Book Board, Wood, Mulberry Paper, Paint, Canvas, Watercolor Paper, Hemp Cord
EXHIBITION DATES: January 14, 2022 – February 26, 2022
Opening: Friday, January 14, 2022 at 6:00 p.m. via Zoom
JUROR: Erin Jenoa Gilbert
Erin Jenoa Gilbert is a New York based curator and art advisor, specializing in Modern and Contemporary Art of the African Diaspora. Exploring the relationship between art, power and politics, her curatorial practice examines the physical and psychological connection to land, the trauma of displacement and the Black female body as contested terrain. Gilbert’s intersectional critical analysis exposes the fault lines in the aesthetic regimes that dominate visual culture, specifically by presenting artists whose contributions to the canon have been overlooked, particularly women artists from the “Deep South” and the “Global South”. Most recently the Curator of African American Manuscripts at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, she has also held positions at The Art Institute of Chicago and The Studio Museum in Harlem.
Over the course of her career she has addressed audiences at The Studio Museum in Harlem, National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Howard University, Fashion Institute of Technology and Swann Auction House. Figure and Force, a conversation she moderated between Barbara Chase Riboud and Ilyasah Shabbaz for Solange’s Saint Heron, exemplifies her commitment to expanding the audience for modern and contemporary art.
In July 2021, Gilbert curated A Force For Change, an exhibition presenting 26 contemporary women artists of African descent in New York benefiting UN Women. She is the co-curator of Mary Lovelace O’Neal: Whales Fucking which will open at MoAD in San Francisco, California in November 2022. Since 2015 she has curated several museum and gallery exhibitions in the US and UK including Zohra Opoku: Draped Histories/Beyond Visage, Sienna Shields: Invisible Woman and In The Eye of the Beholder.
Gilbert holds a BA in Political Science and a BA in African and African American Studies from the University of Michigan, and a MA in Contemporary Art from the University of Manchester. She has published catalog essays on several prominent artists, including Deborah Roberts (Spelman University, 2018); Alma Thomas (Mnuchin Gallery, 2019); Chakaia Booker (ICA Miami, 2021) and Mary Lovelace O’Neal (MoAD, 2022).
Click Here to Read Erin Jenoa Gilbert’s Juror Statement
I am honored to be in the company of wonderful EXHIBITING ARTISTS: Joan Appel, Claude Beller, Bill Brookover, Monica J. Brown, Lionel Carre, Arden Cone, Steven Daiber, Tracy DiTolla, Marvin Eans, Steven Epstein, Tracy Finn, Sandy Furst, Anita Gladstone, Gregory Hennen, Valerie Huhn, Pat Kelly, Karen L. Kirshner, Jack Knight, Shawn Marshall, Monica Mendes, Edward Mills, Myra Joyce Nowlin, David Z. Orban, Clare Parry, Sandi Pfeifer, Robert Reid, Lilly Saywitz, Alireza Vaziri Rahimi, Mark Vogel, Chrissy Wallace
ENJOY THE SHOW HERE!
Visioning the New Year with the Panorama Branch Library
In December, 2021, we completed our 2021-22 Artist Residency in bookmaking at the the Panorama City Branch Library, supported by the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.
I say “we” rather than “I”, as this was a team effort with the Library Staff, and of course, the DCA, always supportive!
During our residency “CULMINATION EVENT” participants created “Vision Journals” to welcome the New Year, and help them set intentions and goals for 2022.
Our online event was well-attended, fun and inspiring.
A wonderful way to complete the Residency, the year, and gather our strength, resiliency, hope, imagination and creativity to move into 2022!
MOON BOOK: Bookmaking for the Winter Solstice!
Moon, Luna, Lunar
It was an honor to lead a special bookmaking workshop through my Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs artist residency at the West Valley Regional Branch Library to welcome and celebrate the Winter Solstice on December 21st, 2021!
We focused on the MOON.
Our participants of assorted ages, cultural backgrounds and experience levels created “Moon Books”, exploring the meaning, metaphor and movement (or phases) of the Moon, inspired by this rich theme, their materials, and the fun and comfort of creating in community!
The results were inspiring too, investigating, celebrating and exploring the moon in (her) many facets through science/astronomy, story and the elements and materials of visual art: line, shape, color; collaged together into (folded and glued) book form.
