Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation (RPAF) and Coronado Print Studio are proud to announce the opening of Intersecting Trajectories. Curated by Pepe Coronado, this exhibition will be at Rush Arts Galleries, located at 526 West 26th Street, Suite 311, New York, NY, 10001.
This exhibit features selected prints recently published at Coronado Print Studio; a collaborative print project in El Barrio, East Harlem, New York City. Highlighting the works of Manuel Acevedo, COCO144, Dominican York Proyecto GRAFICA Collective, Marquita Flowers, Leslie Jimenez, Rejin Leys, Carlos Jesus Martinez Dominguez, Yelaine Rodriguez, Fernando Ruíz Lorenzo, and Vladimir Cybil Charlier; this exhibition illustrates their differing realities on issues of race, immigration, and social justice. From anthropomorphic birds to a dynamic transcultural dialog from the print portfolio Here and There; these symbolisms explore the social and political narratives of our time.
In addition to the selected prints, each of the participating artists was invited to submit one or more pieces of their own work, and a curated selection of these pieces from widely different mediums is also presented. The collected work represents varied points of interest and perspectives from each artist, reflecting the studios’ belief that diverse voices create an important and dynamic dialogue.
An opening reception will be held on Thursday, January 11th, 2018 at 6-8pm. Rush Arts Gallery is open Wednesday-Saturday from 12-6pm.
About the Curator:
Pepe Coronado was born and raised in the Dominican Republic and currently resides in New York City. Coronado is founder of Coronado Print Studio an a founding member of the print collective Dominican York Proyecto GRAFICA, was a resident teaching artist at the Hudson River Museum in New York. He has taught printmaking at the Corcoran College of Art; Georgetown University; and at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, where he earned the Master of Fine Arts. Coronado was a master printer for Pyramid Atlantic in Silver Spring, Maryland; the Hand Print Workshop International in Alexandria, Virginia; and the Serie Print Project in Austin, Texas. He has been a visiting artist at Self Help Graphics in Los Angeles.
Coronado’s most recent solo exhibitions include Interactions: Borders, Boundaries and Historical Relations of the US/DR, PRIZM Art Fair, Miami. White Plains Public Library Gallery, NY; Boundaries, Curated by Margaret Moulton, The Hastings Village Arts Commission Gallery, Hastings on Hudson, NY; Projects Photo / Prints, Gallery 410 GooDBudY, Washington, DC; Construcciones – Obstrucciones 2005 – 10, Casa de Teatro Santo Domingo DR for the PhotoImagen Biennial and at the Center for the Digital Arts, Westchester Community College, NY, curated by Lise Prown; Obstrucciones, Gallery 101, Georgetown University, Washington DC and Amos Eno Gallery, Brooklyn, NY.
Group exhibitions include Collaborative works between Carlos J. Martinez and Pepe Coronado, curated by Souleo at Windows on Amsterdam Art Gallery, City College of New York. And El Museo del Barrio uptown: nasty women/bad hombres , curated by Rocio Aranda-Alvarado. As part of its participation in The Wallach Art Gallery at Columbia University’s first Uptown triennial. My Home Is Not Your Backyard, curated by Oshun Layne, Corridor Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Resilience: Reclaiming History and the Dominican Diaspora, co-curated by Moses Ros-Suarez and Jonathan Goldman, IDB Cultural Center, Washington DC; Tyranny’s Tear: Mending a Dominican Trauma, co-curated by Linda Cunningham and Moses Ros-Suarez, Bronx Art Space Gallery, Bronx, NY; Crossing Boarders at Arts Westchester Gallery, White Plains, NY, curated by Kathleen Reckling; Superreal at El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY, curated by Rocio Aranda-Alvarado; El Panal/The Hive, Trienal Poli-Grafica de San Juan Puerto Rico, curated by Deborah Cullen; 6th international Printmaking biennial of Douro, Portugal, curated by Nuno Canela; and Directions: DC Contemporary Latino Art, Frida Kahlo Gallery, Cultural Institute of Mexico, Washington, DC, curated by Laura Roulet.
Coronado’s work is in many collections including The Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Archives of American Art, The Rutgers Archives for Printmaking Studios; CUNY Dominican Studies Institute, City College of New York City; El Museo del Barrio; El Museo Latino; Georgetown University, Lauinger Memorial Library of Rare Books and Prints Collection, The Library of Congress, The Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation, The Federal Reserve Board of Governors Art Collection, District of Columbia Government: Arts and Humanities Commission, and El Paso Museum of Art and Mexic-Arte Museum.
About Coronado Print Studio:
Rooted in the philosophy of creating art in the community, the Coronado Printstudio is not only a fine art printmaking studio, but a space where artists can shed boundaries and barriers to engage in open dialogue around history, identity, and important issues of our time.
Pepe Coronado, the master printer at the studio, believes that “printmaking, by nature, is a collaborative medium. It’s a community-oriented art form.” Based on this principle, Pepe founded the studio in 2006, and in 2015 relocated to the vibrant neighborhood of East Harlem. The Studio believes in collaboration because it believes that voices and stories are most powerful when seen and heard collectively.
The power of art motivates the studio to reach and engage diverse institutions and sectors nationally and internationally. The Studio believes that the interconnectivity of diverse artistic disciplines is a necessary catalyst to ripple art into the American social imagination. By gaining visibility around the world, the studio invites the attention back to its works, thereby imprinting louder voices of diverse narratives, and broadening the definition of contemporary American art.
Solo Exhibition –Laolu Senbanjo
Opening Reception | Thursday, November 9th 6-8PM
Sacred Art of the Ori is a solo exhibition featuring several large scale works by Laolu Senbanjo. Known for his glowing, patterned lines which cover every inch of human bodies, creating an appearance of a mysterious language on skins, Senbanjo translates this technique to the canvas. The foundation of the Sacred Art of the Ori ritual is the Yoruba religious practice of becoming one with yourself or awakening the God in you (Ori). Laolu’s influence creating this practice is his paternal Grandmother (Mama) who strongly impacted his life and his Art.
“The Sacred Art of the Ori is a Spiritually Intimate Experience. It’s Cathartic for both me and my Muse. We Connect Our Minds, Bodies, and Souls on Higher Level. I paint their Spirit and Soul from that Connection. It Breathes Life into Us Both. ”— Laolu
Laolu is a Brooklyn based Nigerian born Performance and Visual Artist, Singer/Songwriter/Musician, Human Rights Lawyer and Activist whose mantra is “Everything is my canvas.” He considers himself a ‘keeper of the Yoruba culture.’ His Sacred Art of the Ori Yoruba body paint ritual (which he created) was featured on Beyonce’s Grammy Award winning Visual Album, “Lemonade.” He’s graced the cover of the Washington Post, had features in the NY Times, Vogue, BBC, CNN, VICE and more. His ever growing list of collaborations have been with brands like Kenneth Cole, Nike, Equinox Fitness, and with other artists such as Alicia Keys, Swiss Beatz, Seun Kuti, Tony Allen, Alek Wek, and Danielle Brooks. You can find his music on iTunes, Spotify and Apple Music. Listen to his TED talk on TED.com You can also buy his cologne Bvlgari’s Black Essence featuring his original Art work at Bulgari.com
This exhibition is on view from November 9th to December 8th at Rush Arts Gallery, 526 W26th St #311, New York, NY 10001
Solo Exhibition –Azikiwe Mohammed
Opening Reception Thursday, November 9th 6-8PM
Rush Arts Gallery is proud to present, Black Labor, a solo exhibition featuring the works of Azikiwe Mohammed. In this new series, Mohammed explores the notion of self-care as a new phenomenon within the black community. Mohammed states “As we are killed for being alive at an ever-increasing rate, celebrating and protecting our aliveness is a form of protest in and of itself. For too many Black people in America this focus on self is an act of luxury; a luxury that has been foreign to us for far too long.”
Through photography, painting, and sculptural works, Mohammed encourages the viewer to address the question: “how can you ask black people who have built this country from the land up, reared children who were not their own and forced to carry the burden of self on their shoulders for centuries to take some much-needed time now? Black Labor does not get time off.”
Azikiwe Mohammed graduated from Bard College in 2005 where he studied photography and fine arts. Since then he has shown these things in galleries both nationally and internationally. In 2015, he received the Art Matters Grant, and in 2016 was the recipient of the Rema Hort Mann Emerging Artist Grant. He lives in New York and currently works at Mana Fine Arts as part of their mana BSMT program.
This exhibition is on view from November 9th to December 16th at Rush Arts Gallery, 526 W 26th St #311, New York, NY 10001.
In my little backyard in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, amongst the rose bushes, bamboo, herbs, ivy, holly, mosses, ferns, and honeysuckle, I have seen squirrels, possums, raccoons, mice, cats, blue jays, robins, cardinals, doves, pigeons, oriels, humming birds, butterflies, moths, spiders, dragon flies, slugs, snails, a rather large number of mosquitos… and those are only the species I can identify without a reference book!
If I am in the mood to expand my horizons, within blocks I can meander the verdant, tree-lined paths of Fort Greene Park, just one of the NYC parks that include nearly 30,000 acres of land composed of forest, woodland, freshwater wetland, and salt marsh ecosystems. As island dwellers, we New Yorkers are fortunate to have 76,066 acres of open water. For me, a short ride on the F train to Coney or a walk down to Valentino Park in Red Hook provides soul-soothing salty air as I watch waves lapping the Brooklyn shore.
It would not be out of the ordinary to cross paths with Florence Neal while walking along the pier in Red Hook. Florence’s water-based woodcuts (mokuhanga) depicting water are inspired by her daily morning walks both local and far-flung. Rush Teaching Artist Richard Estrin’s watercolors depicting seemingly small infractions upon the environment such as a littered path aim to focus our attention and beg us to consider our actions.
Another devoted walker, Brece Honeycutt, uses the term bewildered to describe the wonder of getting amazingly lost in the wilderness. Brece’s delicate stitched white-on-white pieces are portraits of Nature in her wintery incarnation. Seasons also inspire Beverly Ress who considers her meticulous drawings of no-longer-living plants and animals as a contemporary form of memento mori, honoring the passage of life and the process of letting go.
Claudia Alvarez’s ceramics and paintings are entrenched with the story of her immigration from Mexico. Referencing the abundant plants and flowers of her mother’s prodigious garden, Claudia examines her own relationship to identity, memory and home. Juanli Carrión counts gardening and social practice among his artmaking techniques. Continuing his community gardens that celebrate cultural heritage, Juanli worked with Rush Summer Session to create a growing portrait of Rush students.
Humans are not the only beings that emigrate. While searching for artists to include in this exhibition, I visited the Kentler Flat Files, a wonderful resource open to the public. When I first looked at Robin Holder’s prints at Kentler, I was particularly drawn to her depiction of movement. I can practically hear the flapping of bird wings in Mountain. Several years ago, my nephew and I watched a documentary about the deeply alarming worldwide bee crisis. It was imperative for me to include Jan Mun and her bee advocacy work in this exhibition. Jan has created an installation for this exhibition which includes an inactive beehive, paintings made with beeswax, and even seasonal honey she has harvested (which we encourage you to sample!).
In an age when so-called leaders unfathomably deny the unconscionable destruction of the earth and its bounty, Edward Burtynsky’s photographs of human devastated landscapes captured from the air is profoundly important work. Burtynsky says it well: “[We] come from nature.…There is an importance to [having] a certain reverence for what nature is because we are connected to it… If we destroy nature, we destroy ourselves.” Valerie Hegarty, informed by the current turbulent state of our country while also excavating from America’s past, presents recent ceramic work exploring the erosion of our values right along with our natural resources. The lush floral paintings of Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez take a bit of detective work to really catch the nuanced concept. By magnifying images of Colonial still lifes, she lures us into the lush and lovely decorative elements. But look again, and you will notice in the background that a flood drifts by, exposing neglect and indulgence.
So what are we going to do about this? Jane Ingram Allen has rid the streets of paper detritus, which she has then embedded in her hand-made paper maps. In the photographs of her monochromatic installations Portia Munson takes on plastic. Munson explains: “We as a culture are defined by the objects we mass produce, consume, and throw away. I collect these objects and assemble them into congested installations, in essence using as my resource the refuse of consumer culture that usually ends up in landfills.” I am very excited to include in this exhibition a manifestation of Dear Climate, a piece by Una Chaudhuri, Oliver Kelhammer and Marina Zurkow. On view are a selection of posters – at once funny and caustic, and always spot on. I enthusiastically second their public address: “Dear Climate, we know: we blew it. … We want to find ways to shift relations —with the spheres, with you, and also with our own unruly and uncertain inner climates.”
In Our Nature, curated to kick off the Rush Education Year of Nature, celebrates the astounding natural resources in our midst, addresses humankind’s deep devastation of nature, and aims to stir up positive fervor to do our best to cherish and protect our environment as we go forward. I do believe that we can and must find it in our nature and for our nature to care and to care deeply.
Tenderheaded is the debut solo exhibition of Rush Artist in Residence, Pamela Council. This thematic, multi-media experience features new works from multiple ongoing series, including the Velvets, Ring Holders, and Fountains. The works on display consider the interplay between private and public space, architecture and domestic life. Tenderheaded is on view at Rush Arts Gallery September 7 – October 12, 2017.
Describing the exhibition’s title and theme, Pamela Council states, “To be a ‘tenderheaded’ girl means having such a sensitivity to the experience of having one’s hair combed as to be stigmatized for it. Tenderheaded girls are the ones for whom the pain of beauty, especially when receiving those braided and tightly pulled ‘protective styles,’ can be overwhelming.” Council explores precious objects and wields materials with this sensitivity in mind. In sculptures, installations, paintings, and prints she re-contextualizes familiar materials, particularly those nostalgic ones that resonate with the notion of “Black Girl Magic” and those which she calls “self-soothing.” Embedded in these works you will find samplings of velvet, sneaker rubber, crack pipes, incense, soap, sex toys, lotion, plastic pony beads, toys, blankets, and flotation devices, among other objects. Each one carries its own cultural history and is imbued with new meaning through the artist’s touch, manipulation, and language.
Hanging from a giant safety pin, a shampoo hat’s pink ruffle is the backdrop for a life-saver shaped layering of items: a 5-finger engagement ring display, a floral foam ring, and a hair donut. This piece is called Lifesaver, and in it are many of the themes that Council’s sculptural works in Tenderheaded explore: the protection of children, the ritual of protective hairstyling, acts of care and tending, gardens, staying afloat, and gendered rites of passage.
A major Velvet installation, hung up by toys and sneaker rubber, anchors the space. A patchwork of silk velvet panels, custom printed satin sleep scarves, and hand-me-down blankets span the gallery. Burned out of the nap of the velvet’s surface is an original text that remixes Beyoncé and Keith Sweat songs and confronts the viewer from the perspective of a hyper-sexualized young girl: “I may be young but you’re ready.” Council’s Velvets are a product of catharsis through play with self-soothing and comfort materials, centered around devoré (burned out) velvet with text and patterns. The artist likens the devoré process to tracing trauma lines in fabric and picking scabs after a bad hair relaxer.
The exhibition itself is designed like a small garden that must be navigated in order to confront the multiple bodies of work. The garden is filled with the fragrance of Luster’s Pink Oil Moisturizer Hair Lotion and the sound of pony beads trickling, each occupying a fountain hidden behind a Hedge. Pink Lotion cascades in a touch of nostalgic Americana, which may require a trigger warning for the truly tenderheaded. Luster’s is a Black-owned hair product manufacturer based in Chicago, and in the fountain sculpture Tenderheaded, Council highlights the role of one of their signature products in the domestic ritual of creating protective styles for young girls. Council’s other fountain honoring protective styles is Fountain of Your Youth, in which pony beads flow like water, exploring Venus Williams’ 1999 “bead incident” and the face-smacking beaded styles of black girlhood, mostly created between a caretaker’s legs.
Honoring women as cultural and material producers is a key consideration of Council’s presentation. Relief, silicone relief tiles in the form of sneaker outsoles, and Let Go Byes Be Go Byes, a conveyor belt sculpture painted in hues of pink, draws on the artist’s memories of working in sneaker factories.
Alongside these works are sculptures from the Ringholders series—a series of small, surrealist fleshy sculptures composed of doll-makers’ clay and craft items mounted on engagement ring displays. Tenderheaded is a sensitive, material-driven walk through the ages.
Rush Arts Gallery is located at 526 W 26th St Suite 311, New York, NY 10001. Gallery hours are Wed. – Sat. 12-6pm. For further questions about this exhibition please contact Charlotte Mouquin at charlotte@rushartsgallery.org
Children of the Ancestors is a solo exhibition of Nigerian American artist, Jide Ojo presented at the Rush Gallery Project Space September 7th – 23rd, 2017. This exhibition highlights the large-scale installation, The Children of the Ancestors, is a mural sized piece made of a collection of photographs, shattered glass, resin bubble forms, with rich saturated colors.
Jide Ojo, grew up in Ilesha and Lagos before moving to New York in 1972. Growing up in Nigeria with a mother who worked with fabric dying and a father who was a blacksmith, Ojo moved to the US to pursue art and education. Being in and around artists, photographers, and gallerists, he has been inspired by the layers of community within the arts and the people who have inspired and supported his artistic career. For over 12 years Ojo photographed the people in his orbit including several inspirational artists, gallery owners, and art collectors: Jack Shainman, Danny Simmons, Russell Simmons, Mart Markowitz, Chuck Close, Frank Bowling, Martin Puryear, Fred Wilson, Whitfield Lovell, David Hammons, Laurie Simms, DJ Spooky, Kehinde Wiley, and Andres Serrano, to name a few. They are all a part of Children of the Ancestors on view.
Children of the Ancestors, is a reflection of spiritual ideology of human development and relationships. The bubbles and bursts, reflect how thoughts and personas can grow within a bubble, and then burst or shatter, becoming part of a primordial web. Ojo believes we are all children of the Ancestors, and it is time to see our connections.
Ni de aquí, Ni de allá is a solo exhibition of works by David Rios Ferreira in the Corridor Gallery Project Space. Ni de aquí, Ni de allá translates to “Not from here, Not from there” which relates to Rios Ferreira’s investigations of race, nation and sexuality, this work stems from a hybrid of colonial, political and nationalist origins. Being a native of the Bronx, NY with Puerto Rican roots his works explore the dichotomies of self, heritage, and pop culture.
The work in Ni de aquí, Ni de allá examines the vejigante, a folkloric creature-like character found in Puerto Rican festival celebrations. Exploring carnival costumes and mask making traditions of the Caribbean and West Africa and combining these influences with appropriated images from coloring books, 18th C. newspaper etchings, political cartoons and characters from children’s pop culture such as Astro Boy, Pinocchio, and Peter Pan—Rios Ferreira creates intricate layered works on paper and Mylar. The works reflect the artists attraction to “the hybrid nature of the vejigante—its mixed identity, its ‘in-betweeness,’ and its colonial, political and nationalist origins.”
The artist states “ My interest in the past is informed by issues of power found in the colonial narrative, especially that of the U.S. and its territories in which school children were subjected to deculturlization practices. In my drawings the child is the object of a performance—the embodiment of the interchange of cultural historical forces that simultaneously reinforce and challenge the fluidity inherent in identity.”
David Rios Ferreira holds a BFA from The Cooper Union. His recent artist residencies include The Center for Book Arts, the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts and Lower East Side Printshop. In 2017 he will be featured in the Artist In the Marketplace (AIM 37) Biennial at The Bronx Museum of the Arts. He has exhibited in galleries and museums in the US and abroad, including BAM, CoCA Seattle, Nemeth Art Center, Minnesota and Kunstraum Richard Sorge Gallery, Berlin.
The Opening Reception will take place Sunday, April 9th from 4-6pm. For further information about this exhibition, please contact charlotte@rushartsgallery.org or via phone 845-480-1258.
Mirrored Migrations, guest curated by Sharbreon Plummer, opens at Corridor Gallery Sunday April 9th from 3-6pm at 334 grand Ave, Brooklyn, NY. Mirrored Migrations confronts a conversation of the national and global influences of the South on contemporary Black Womanhood. Featured artists LaToya M. Hobbs (Arkansas), Lovie Olivia (Texas), Jessica Strahan (Louisiana) study their personal multifaceted journeys of womanhood and perspectives of the world while reflecting on the traditions, communities and magic that exists.
LaToya Hobbs examines the female figure to challenge past notions of identity concerning the black female body, deconstructs them, and resurrect an ideology grounded in positivity. The artist engages with the “models not as objects but as subjects with a voice.” A native of North Little Rock, AR Hobbs received her undergraduate degree in Studio Art with an emphasis in Painting from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and her MFA in printmaking from Purdue University. Currently she is also a Professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art.
Lovie Olivia is an interdisciplinary artist whose process uses fresco, digital fresco, and sgrafitto creating a discourse around gender, sexuality, race, class, and power. Inspired by the beautiful, mythical, historical and ornamental concepts throughout human histories. These portraits of women are contemporary frescoes that blend autobiographical experiences with self-exploration and visual observations. She uses an ancient technique exploring contemporary subjects. She states” I am a maker, interested in the psychological distance between the viewer and the artwork eagerly paying homage to the makers before me; story makers, homemakers, hand makers, peacemakers, printmakers and art makers.” Lovie Olivia resides and works in Houston, Texas.
Jessica Strahan, a native of New Orleans is fueled by the vibrancy of Crescent City’s jazz scene, and the city’s colorful and tragic history. Her vibrant portraits reflect on a lifetime of “living here and living there.” Her subjects are inspired by her children, the people she’s met and the mental, emotional, and spiritual space she’s in while creating. “Drawing and painting have always brought me peace,” states Strahan.
Curator Sharbreon Plummer brings together these artists while meditating on the South as a vessel. “A womb filled with its comforts and complexities. The passage through which our ancestors fought and endured to protect their lives and legacies.” The work of these women artists reflects stories of survival and preservation often lost in the folds of history. Sharbreon Plummer is a New Orleans based artist and administrator whose research centers on Black Visual Culture. She currently serves as Program Associate for Community Engagement at the Joan Mitchell Center.
Mirrored Migrations, will be celebrated with an opening reception Sunday, April 9th from 4-6pm. There will also be a discussion with artists and the curator on Sunday May 21st from 4-6pm. For further information about this exhibition, please contact charlotte@rushartsgallery.org or via phone 845-480-1258.
The exhibition Detroit GRIND is inspired by the 2015 mural “Live From Detroit City” by artist Sydney G. James that was created for the inaugural Murals in the Market festival in Detroit. James’ painting pays homage to Vibe’s iconic “Live From Death Row” cover, but with her own hometown take, making a bold statement by replacing Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, 2Pac and Suge Knight with portraits of four of Detroit’s prominent contemporary artists, herself included.
Each of the contributing artists work featured in this exhibition reveals a chapter in the narrative of Detroit, all while illustrating their distinctive, personal experiences, understanding of the past, and shared knowledge of what is happening in today’s society from a cultural perspective.
Detroit GRIND will feature the work of Detroiters Sydney G. James, Tylonn J. Sawyer, Nic Notion, Tiff Massey, Rashaun Rucker & Olayami Dabls. This exhibition is a study of the current work of these six Detroit artists that speaks to the last 40 years of Detroit’s artistic history. These individuals have helped define, create and activate the cultural plexus of Detroit. Detroit GRIND acts as a catalyst to give artists ownership over not only their own personal stories, but the stories of the city they reflect upon.
Collaborating with RUSH Arts on this exhibition proves to have further implications on the significance of the organization’s roots of providing resources to artists of color who lack representation in not only New York City’s Chelsea arts district, the hub of the international art world, but the art world as a whole.
This exhibition acts as a visual manifestation of an authentic portrayal of not only a people, but of a city so often misunderstood. By expressing tones of the history and cultural events of the present the contributing artists are focusing their visual megaphone, artistic talents & craftsmanship by amplifying their ideas and perceptions of reality of a city with a rich history.
From Jazz to Motown, Techno to Hip-hop the world has infinitely benefited from the history of Detroit’s musical voice. It is now time to take notice of what is happening in the visual arts that is being created by individuals that exist, create and thrive in this environment.
Please view this music video of “Detroit is Black” by participating artist Tiff Massey and producer Waajeed.
Corridor Gallery
334 Grand Ave | Brooklyn, NY 11238
February 26th– March 26th, 2017
Opening Reception | Sunday, February 26th, 2017 4-6PM
Grand Salle Gallery & Annex
Tom Adams Financial Center | Spry Street, Bridgetown Barbados
March 8th-12th, 2017
Opening Reception | Wednesday, March 8th, 2017 6-9PM
New York, NY (January 19th, 2017) — Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation (RPAF) and the Caribbean Fine Art Fair (CaFA) are proud to announce the opening of My Home is Not Your Backyard. Curated by Oshun Layne, this exhibition will be a dual venue experience at The Grand Salle Gallery and Annex (Bridgetown, Barbados) and Corridor Gallery (Brooklyn, NY).
The Caribbean is commonly associated with lush lands surrounded by endless horizons of sand and sea, a paradise to escape from the day-to-day realities of life. Infused with peoples of African, Amerindian, Asian, and European descent, the Caribbean has an alluring appeal. Through advertisements and media, tourists are encouraged to come and play in this environment as though it is their backyard, at times ignoring the rich cultural life that exists there.
My Home is Not Your Backyard seeks to create a visual dialogue that highlights the reality of Caribbean societies as opposed to how they portrayed by the media and other sources. Featured artists, Kennis Baptiste (Grenada), Gharan Burton (Dominica), Pepe Coronado (Dominican Republic), Easton Davy (Jamacia), Sophia Dawson (Jamaica), Danae Howard (Panama), Jamal Ince (Barbados), Leslie Jimenez (Dominican Republic), Melissa Matthews (Trinidad and Tobago), Charles Jean Pierre (Haiti), Moses Ros-Suarez (Dominican Republic), Sheena Rose (Barbados), and Jorge Valdes (Cuba) present a series of multi-disciplinary works that explore issues pertaining to economic and social injustice, racial and ethnic discrimination, and constraints on personal growth which many residents experience in their respective homelands, thus encouraging the viewer to reexamine the false images of the Caribbean narrative.
About Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation
Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation (RPAF) is dedicated to providing inner city youth across New York City with significant exposure to the arts, as well as to supporting emerging artists with exhibition opportunities.
Rush was founded in 1995 by three brothers: Danny Simmons, visual artist and community builder; media mogul Russell Simmons; and Joseph “Rev. Run” Simmons of the legendary hip-hop group Run-DMC. Their goal was to fill the gap that the disenfranchised and people of color faced in both accessing the arts and exhibition opportunities.
About Caribbean Fine Art Fair (CaFA)
CaFA Fair celebrates the important contribution of Caribbean visual artists and the increasingly important role that Caribbean art is playing in the international art arena. It is a curated exposition showcasing paintings, photography, sculpture, and drawings by art galleries, institutions and individual artists who will be represented.
Not only will there be works produced in the Islands and parts of Central and South America, but also by artists of Caribbean ancestry living and working in Europe and North America.
While the Caribbean region is known for its pulsating reggae and calypso rhythms, its white sand beaches and spicy cuisine, much remains unknown about the richness of the region’s cultural assets such as its writers, performing and visual artists. This, in spite of the fact that Caribbean Americans constitute a significant and growing component of America’s population and people of Caribbean ancestry have made significant contributions to the American and European cultural landscape.
The vision of Caribbean Fine Art Fair – Barbados is to become an annual exposition for the appreciation of Caribbean Visual Art and a show that captures the diversity, creativity and the integrity of Caribbean art. While the visual arts provide that central focus, Caribbean Fine Art Fair – Barbados will be combined with educational programs and stirring cultural events including music, film, theater and fashion.
Caribbean Fine Art Fair – Barbados is planned and produced by a team with extensive experience in marketing fine art; planning and participating in exhibitions and trade shows; creating and executing advertising, sales and public relations campaigns. The Expo will be marketed through a highly targeted media and direct mail campaign and through strategic alliances with community based organizations and opinion leaders.
For more information, please contact Oshun Layne at olayne@rushhlanthrpic.org