FROM DC 2 MIA!

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FROM DC 2 MIA!

Seven artists from DC have been invited to participate in the Prizm Art Fair and we need your help to get there! The Selected Artists: Holly Bass, Wesley Clark, Jamea Richmond-Edwards, Shaunte Gates, Amber Robles-Gordon, Adrienne Gaither and Stan Squirewell.

In recent years, DC artists, collectors and gallerists have been making the pilgrimage to Art Basel Miami Beach in ever-growing numbers. With 260 leading galleries participating and over 50,000 people in attendance, Art Basel Miami is one of the most highly exposed art fairs in North America. This year a group of 7 Black artists will be showing work together at the Prizm Art Fair, along with other jury-selected American and international artists. This is an incredible opportunity, not only as artists but as ambassadors of DC’s contemporary art scene. 

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Genius or Gobbledygook? “Real Beauty” at Carroll Square Gallery →

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Genius or Gobbledygook? “Real Beauty” at Carroll Square Gallery

LOUIS JACOBSON, http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com

 

Art theory is often inscrutable, and it’s doubly so for abstract painting. That’s why the framing of the “Real Beauty” at Carroll Square Gallery needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

“Abstraction is arguably the truest representation of how the world feels, though by definition it obscures how the world actually appears,” reads the exhibit’s wall-posted introduction.

Is this genius or gobbledygook? It’s hard to tell. And most of the works—all of them abstractions, by four different artists—don't offer much help in sorting it out.

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Catalyst Projects is pleased to announce

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Catalyst Projects is pleased to announce

 

The creative process for a sculptor can more often than not include drawing. Whether it be the technical planning of a three dimensional work, documenting the creative process or a wish to expand their vision to include other mediums, a sculptors approach to drawing is widely varied and unique.

Julia Bloom (DC) presents large scale charcoal drawings on paper for this exhibition. Bloom's three dimensional works are in a large way drawings themselves. Constructed from sticks and wire, and sometimes covered in paint or rust, her sculptural pieces take on a tenuous, airy quality. In contrast, the drawings, which are meant as portraits of the sculptures, are bold, dense images of the structures they represent.
 

 

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40 amazing black artists to watch in 2014 →

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40 amazing black artists to watch in 2014

No, not every deserving artist gets their first taste of attention through one of the art world's largest platforms such as the legendary Art Basel show, or the Frieze Art Fair. In particular, African-American artists and other artists of color are still working towards greater visibility in the highest spheres of the rarified art community. Thus, there can never be too many lists bringing attention to the abundance of talented creators on the cusp of discovery who are ready to emerge.

Here are the fresh faces and more established visionaries still gaining ground that you need to know in 2014. The African diasporan artists compiled in the photo gallery above carry forth the traditions set in motion by visual artists from significant eras such as the Harlem Renaissance and Black Arts Movement, yet speak with new images and forms that lead us into the future

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I Kan Do Dat curated by Danny Simmons and Oshun Layne.

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In the past week there have been three art openings at three different galleries that are all part of the same massive exhibition of contemporary abstraction "I Kan Do Dat" curated by Danny Simmons and Oshun Layne.  This exhibition ties in 87 artists of all cultural backgrounds and a huge spectrum of materials and techniques in Contemporary Abstraction.  The galleries involved include Rush Arts Gallery in Chelsea, a Skylight Gallery at Restoration Plaza in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn, and Selena Gallery in the LIU downtown Brooklyn campus.

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Inaugural Edition of Prizm Art Fair Launches Featuring Artists Representing the African Diaspora and Emerging Markets at Marquis Miami on December 5-8, 2013

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Miami, Fl- A talented collective of established and emerging artists from locales as varied as the Democratic Republic of Congo to Washington D.C. will showcase contemporary art at the inaugural blockbuster Prizm Art Fair to be held December 5-8, 2013 at the Marquis Miami (1100 Biscayne Blvd, downtown Miami). The opening night reception will take place on December 5th from 11pm-2am and is open to the public. Admission is free. Prizm Art Fair is a collaborative effort between, Mikhaile Solomon, designer and arts advocate who is the founder of Prizm Art Fair and Marie Vickles, an independent curator, arts educator, and artist based in South Florida. Salient works presented will highlight the diversity evident in contemporary visual art practices including painting, sculpture and mixed media installations.

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The art of Amber Robles-Gordon is the art of Anacostia, quite literally.

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Robles-Gordon cobbles together sculptures and canvas collages from scraps of paper and fabric she finds in the neighborhood’s trash cans and storefront windows. She’s shown her work at the Honfleur Gallery. Right now, she has a striking wire and fabric mesh artwork on view near the Deanwood Metro stop.

But as ARCH Development Corporation continues to expand its constellation of arts destinations in Anacostia—the latest is the Anacostia Arts Center on Good Hope Road SE—Robles-Gordon wonders if her neighborhood will still have room for her.

There’s a tendency to see Anacostia, long on talent and struggle but short on just about everything else, as a blank canvas. With the right kinds of art and advertising, the thinking goes, Anacostia can become a hub for the creative class. But who gets left out?

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The Story Behind Delusions of Grandeur

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The Washington Post

By Michael O’Sullivan



“You have to be delusional to want to be an artist,” says Amber Robles-Gordon, who, with Shaunte Gates and Jamea Richmond-Edwards, debuted as the art collective Delusions of Grandeur with two back-to-back exhibitions in the summer of 2011. Originally funded by a grant from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the group has expanded to five members with the addition of Wesley Clark and Stanley Squirewell.

As tough as it is for anyone to make it as an artist, Robles-Gordon says it can be tougher for artists of color. It’s also tough, she believes, for artists struggling to balance careers and parenthood. (Several members of the group have young children.)

Having first come together as a kind of art salon, with the goal of fostering dialogue among its members, the collective has now set its sights on somewhat loftier goals. Its name may be tongue-in-cheek, but Robles-Gordon admits that “we do want to be in the history books.” 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/gog/exhibits/no-strings-attached,1245339/critic-review.html