BADC and the DC Arts Center Presents The Blues and Other Colors

November 18 - January 8
Opening Reception: Friday, November 18, 7 - 9 PM

The Blues and Other Colors assembles photographs and paintings by nine artists in an attempt to visually express and interpret The Blues. A musical form and genre originating in African-American communities at the end of the 19th century, The Blues have permeated jazz, rock and roll as well as multiple other music genres. Yet, the word blue also connotes the primary color perceived from light of wavelength 440–490 nm and may represent happiness, optimism, or, conversely, sadness. The artists in this exhibition interpret the blues as a color, musical form, and emotional state. Work by Cedric Baker, Magruder Murray, Adjoa J. Burrowes, Gloria C. Kirk, Bruce McNeil, Hubert Jackson, J’Nell Jordon, Carolyn Goodridge, and Jarvis Grant will be presented. Curated by Tim Davis.

Tim Davis
Tim Davis is a multi-media artist, gallerist and educator. He holds a Masters in art from the University of Illinois and a Bachelor of fine arts from Eastern Illinois University. He is the owner and Director of International Visions Gallery in Washington DC. He has curated over 25 exhibitions throughout the US including The Black Fine Art show in New York and Atlanta, The DC Convention Center, the DC Mayor's office, The Ethiopian Embassy, and the Embassy of Venezuela. He has exhibited his work widely throughout DC area and the United States.

Black Artists of DC
Black Artists of DC (BADC) is an artist membership organzation founded in 1999. BADC has grown since then to over 400 members, associates and supporters from every discipline who at one time lived, were educated, or worked in the Washington DC metropolitan area. It is composed of artists, arts administrators, educators, dealers, collectors, museum directors, curators, gallery owners and arts enthusiasts. Together members lend artistic skills and insight to the cause of supporting and enlivening the arts. The organizations acts as resources for other artists by encouraging them to explore new techniques and to improve their professional approach to art. BADC compliments the diversity of a cosmopolitan nation’s capitol.

DC Arts Center
2438 18th Street NW
Washington, DC 20009
202.462.7833
www.dcartscenter.org




All content © 2007 Black Artists of DC all rights reserved. For permission to reproduce contact: editor@blackartistsofdc.com

Black Artists of DC Presents: Black Abstraction

Most of the artists featured in Black Abstraction speak of an energy and spirituality that guides their practice as expressed through: the five senses (Brooking), musical forms such as the blues, jazz and R&B (de Vargas and Williams), nature and the changing light patterns of the weather and seasons (Goodridge, Jackson, and White), multi-layering and various textural media, such as sand (Gebreyesus, Jones, and Leak), early African,craft and folk art traditions (Bouie and Varnell), while others have even been influenced by other art styles and movements, including Abstract Expressionism and the Colorists (Vango).

For many black artists, abstraction serves as an alternative way to express political and social ideas, fears, dreams and longings outside of figuration. It is the psyche made visible in swaths of bright and deep hues and textures energetically executed as in gestural abstraction or in the meticulous application of lines and shapes seen in geometric abstraction. Other artists express this creative impetus at times in symbols and letters, some seemingly familiar while others are self-created.
A few notable African American artists who have made seminal contributions to abstract art and Abstract Expressionism idioms include DC-based artist Sam Gilliam, Norman Lewis, Alma Thomas, Felrath Hines, Al Loving, Moe Brooker, Stephanie Pogue and Charles Searles.

In his essay “Blindness, Abstraction and ‘Double Consciousness’: the Critical Imaginary and the Sources of Modern Art,” CUNY professor and author Dr. Geoffrey Jacques summed up the relationship between African-American visual culture and abstract art as: “abstraction entered modern (so-called Western) culture in large part as an African or black thing, and is in fact, a ‘black’ tradition.” Increasing the understanding of this often misunderstood aesthetic and exposure of these art-makers is the primary focus of this current exhibition.


Jarvis DuBois CURATOR


The purpose of “Black Artists of DC” (BADC) is to create a Black artists community to promote, develop and validate the culture, artistic expressions and aspirations of past and present artists of Black-Afrikan ancestry in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Some of the goals of “Black Artists of DC” are to: produce, exhibit, document, continue and conserve our artistic legacy; create a cooperative trans-generational training ground for artists; create an advocacy for Black artists through community and political activity; and create and support a market for the art created by people of African descent.


The exhibition, Black Abstraction, in cooperation with The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission and Arts/Harmony Hall Regional Center, is sponsored and organized by the Black Artists of DC and highlights the work of 12 contemporary abstract artists who continue to explore and individualize this artistic style. These artists include: Anne Bouie, Daniel T. Brooking, Desepe de Vargas, Elsa Gebreyesus, Carolyn Goodridge, J. Hubert Jackson, Wayson Jones, Viola Leak, Eugene Vango, Kathleen Varnell ,J. Bertram White, and Ann Marie Williams. The works in the exhibition illustrate various mediums and methods including digital archival prints, encaustic, silk shibori and smoke-fired stoneware.








All content © 2007 Black Artists of DC all rights reserved.For permission to reproduce contact: www.blackartistsofdc.com