Press Release
Mayn30 ? August 3, 2019
Skoto Gallery isnpleased to present a Group Show of paintings, drawings, sculpture and mixednmedia work. The opening reception is Thursday,nMay 30, 6-8pm.
This exhibition brings together the works of thirteen artistsnincluding Osi Audu. Sokari Douglas Camp. Nanette Carter. Mor Faye. Sam Gilliam. Wadsworth Jarrell. Wosene Worke Kosrof. Al Loving. Andrew Lyght. Allie McGee. Afi Nayo. Owusu-Ankomah. Howardena Pindell.
Despite their varied experiences working across different timenperiods each of these artists represent a resonant voice that achieves its ownndistinction and clarity amidst fluxional experiences. Their creative voices arensimultaneously reclamatory, instrumental, reconstructive if not interrogativenand in some cases seek to retrieve both individual and collective memory.
Sam Gilliam is an innovative color field painter who has advanced theninventions associated with the Washington Color School. A prolific artist withna highly developed experimental approach to makingnart, he creates work that is unorthodox and persistently innovative. There is a lyrical beauty in his work thatnbelies its surprising seamlessness between the spiritual and physicalnworlds. Sam Gilliam?s works are held in the collections of The Museum of ModernnArt, New York, Musee d?Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Studio Museum innHarlem and the Tate Modern, London.
Born 1943 in Philadelphia, HowardenanPindell studied painting at Boston University and Yale University. Afterngraduating, she accepted a job in the Department of Prints and IllustratednBooks at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, where she remained for 12 yearsn(1967-1979). Her work explores texture, color, structures and the process ofnmaking art, it is often political, addressing the intersecting issues ofnracism, feminism, violence, slavery, and exploitation. She is represented innnumerous collections including the Brooklyn Museum, the Corcoran Gallery ofnArt, Washington DC, the High Museum of Art, Atlanta the Louisiana Museum of ModernnArt, Copenhagen, Denmark and the Studio Museum of Art in Harlem.
As one continues looking at the work of the prominent abstract painternand collage artist Al Lovingn(1935-2005), one can?t help but make associations with his work to thensyncopated and disruptive elements of Jazz specifically Be-bop and Free Jazz.nThe lines, colors and tonal textures in his work move and mime the sonic dissonancenin this uniquely African-American music genre. Al Loving?s work is a play inncontrast: light and shadow, call and response, grids and spirals etc. His worksnare included in the permanent collections of the Whitney and the MetropolitannMuseum in New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Detroit Institute ofnArt among others.
Nanette Carter uses oil paint, oil sticks and pencils on collaged Mylar toncreate subtle but intriguing works with rich surfaces imbued with luminosity,ndensity and transparency. In her mind?s eye, she sees herself more as a buildernespecially when one considers the scale of many of her collages. The act ofnbringing pieces together to create a substantial work is what fascinates hernmost as an artist. Shenis in several private and public collections including the Montclair Museum,nNew Jersey; The Studio Museum, New York, Newark Museum, NJ and the St. LouisnArt Museum, St. Louis, Missouri.
Andrew Lyght draws on a life-long exploration of free-hand drawn lines,nplane, volume and color to depict pictorial space. He seeks to find annalternative aesthetics and discursive frame work that mines the microcosm ofnhis culture for symbols that can be universally understood. As stated bynBarbara Rose, the esteemed art historian in her essay for the artist?s recent FullnCircle retrospective at the Dorsky Museum: Andrew Lyght is annunusual artist in that he experienced both the archaic roots of modernismnduring his boyhood as well as the way in which modernism found freshness innnon-Western and archaic culture.
Wosene Worke Kosrof (b. 1950, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) continues tondraw upon an individual reserve of personal and collective memories to activatena meaningful form of engagement that celebrates the richness of Ethiopia?snvisual culture. He fuses a vocabulary of signs and symbols drawn fromnreconfigured Amharic script with a mastery of the nuances of color andncomposition as well as an open-ended improvisational sensibility to create worknthat comes alive to convey temporal and spatial dimensions of the written word.n
Mor Fayen(Dakar Senegal, 1947-1984) was a versatile and complex artist whose ability tonexpress a vivid interior existence while simultaneously opening up to some ofnthe larger issues of our time was reflected consistently in his work throughoutnhis career. As an artist, Mor Faye absorbed and engaged the outside world,ndrawing from a multitude of sources yet claiming allegiance to none. Since his death in 1984 at the age of 37, MornFaye?s reputation as a troubled artistic genius has reached mythic proportions.nA prolific artist, he lived a short and very productive life, and left behind anrich body of work that will help liberate as well as enrich contemporarynthinking in Africa.
Allie McGee often compares his work tonjazz improvisation: the shapes and colors are his recurring themes, looping andnrepeating themselves within a given composition. He explains, ?What you can donas an artist, whether it?s painting or music, is create repetition or rhythm sona person can accept it as being something knowledgeable instead of chaos. I?veneven discovered that chaos is not the way we?ve assumed it to be, but it isnordered as well — that is the element behind creativity that people don?tnconsider.? His work is in several collections including the Detroit Institutenof Art and the Studio Museum in Harlem.
Sokari Douglas Camp is a groundbreaking artist whose works combinenmotion with history, culture and contemporary global politics. Her work isnpredominantly sculpted in steel and draws inspiration from her Nigerian rootsnand international issues. Perhaps best known for kinetic life-size welded steelnsculptures of Kalabari masquerades, Sokari Douglas Camp sculptural practicendefies gender and cultural stereotypes. She was the recipient of a Henry MoorenBursary in 1983, and was selected as a finalist fpr London 4thnPlinth in 2003. In 2005, Douglas Camp was honored as a Commander of the Ordernof the British Empire for her career in the arts. Her work is held by thenAmerican Museum of Natural History, New York, British Museum, Segataya ArtnMuseum, Japan and the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution,nWashington DC.
Many thanks to the N?namdi Center for ContemporarynArt, Detroit, MI for helping to make this exhibition possible.
