Marisa Williamson
Vessels
October 17 – November 30, 2024
Opening Reception and Performance: Thursday, October 17, 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Amelie A. Wallace Gallery is pleased to announce Vessels, a solo show by Charlottesville-based artist Marisa Williamson. For many years, Williamson's work has combined historical context with her contemporary experience of Black womanhood in the US. This exhibition features three video works. The Fire, created in 2017 and revised since, features the persona of Sally Hemings, the enslaved mother of Thomas Jefferson’s children. The Moth, created in 2024, features Williamson and her two-year-old daughter as moths living in the belly of the dead president. Obelisk, created for this exhibition, is a video interpretation of the ancient Egyptian myth of Isis and Osiris using variations of past persona and iterations of familiar themes.
Williamson’s work is inspired by motherhood, the power of the erotic, ambivalence around historical icons, and the comprised Black woman as an archetypal yet iconoclastic figure whose desire, ennui, and agency shape the narrative of resistance. Anchoring the show is Seedbed IV, a serial installation and monument to Sally Hemings, the foremother. Seedbed IV is a platform for performance on the night of the exhibition’s opening, and will thereafter house the performance’s artifacts.
Artist Biography
Marisa Williamson is a project-based artist who works in video, image-making, installation, and performance around themes of history, race, feminism, and technology. Her work has been featured in exhibitions throughout the US, as well as in Rome, Berlin, Switzerland, and Buenos Aires. She was a participant in the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture in 2012, and the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program in 2014–2015. Williamson holds a BA from Harvard University and an MFA from CalArts. She is an Assistant Professor of Visual Art at the University of Virginia, with a research focus on Blackness.
During the opening reception, there will be a performance by the artist between 5:30 pm and 6:10 pm. The exhibition is co-sponsored by WGSS (Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies Center) of SUNY Old Westbury.
Amelie A. Wallace Gallery and Old Westbury College Foundation of SUNY Old Westbury are pleased to announce African Art and Its Historic Value Systems in Educating a People, an exhibition of African sculptures selected from the Cultural Museum of African Art–The Eric Edwards Collection (CMAAEEC). Over the course of half a century, Mr. Edwards has amassed more than 3,000 carefully selected African artifacts representing all fifty-four nations of the African continent. It is one of the most significant collections of African Art in the United States and the world. In November 2023, the Museum opened to the public in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, where Mr. Edwards was born and raised.
For this exhibition at Amelie A. Wallace Gallery, sixteen African sculptures from Sierra Leone, Angola, Gabon, Congo, Cameroon, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Guinea, and Mali will be showcased. These artifacts were produced between the 16th and early 20th centuries. They were utilized for teaching youth, often by secret societies that initiated young boys in ceremonies as they became young men responsible for their families and society. In this exhibition, a Mende Bundu Sande helmet from Sierra Leone, that was used for the female “Sande Secret Society,” is included as an example representing a unique masking tradition exclusively worn by women. Another highlight of the exhibition is an early 19th century Songye Power Figure from a shrine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Made of wood, antelope hone, fabric, and a bell, it is a well-preserved example of the power of the community guardian, imbued with spiritually-charged materials.
Eric’s father, James Edwards, who immigrated to the US from Barbados at the age of seventeen, taught his children the importance of learning the origins of their culture, which was not taught in NYC schools. Invigorated and inspired by his father’s teaching, Eric would often visit the Brooklyn Museum and Metropolitan Museum of Art. Eric attended Brooklyn Tech High School and City University of New York, becoming an electrical engineer working for AT&T and 3Com Corporation, among others. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from Medgar Evers College. He began collecting music records at the age of twelve, amassing over 40,000 records from all genres of music, and built his own stereo system and color TV from scratch. His collecting history of African art began in the early 1970s with a modest purchase—an exquisite Senufo-Bambara maternity statue from Mali, acquired for $300. This seemingly simple act would ignite a lifelong passion, leading to the creation of an impressive collection of African Art.
These artifacts tell the story of African diasporic emigrations and their contributions to the evolution of man and womankind throughout the world. Mr. Edwards’s creation of CMAA completes the story of African American history beyond a mere 400 years of slavery to encompass more than four thousand years of human history. Mr. Edwards has also created a comprehensive educational curriculum to tell the history and to give voice to each piece, telling why it was created and explaining its value and significance to the people who created it. Mr. Edwards’s aim is to inspire all people, but most especially youth of African origin.
The exhibition is sponsored by the Old Westbury College Foundation and Wallace Endowment Fund. The Gallery Director thanks Mr. Eric Edwards for loaning his invaluable collection, Mr. Eddie Gajadar, Strategic Project Manager of CMAAEEC, and Angela Wambugu Cobb, Vice President for Institutional Advancement and Executive Director of the Old Westbury College Foundation for co-organizing effort. We also thank Penny Chin, Director of Alumni Affairs, and Pritpal Kainth, Administrative Assistant of Old Westbury Foundation, for additional administrative assistance, as well as Jong-Il Ma of Mia Fine Art Work for building vitrines for the exhibition.
Participating Artists:
Kofi Bazzel-Smith, Alan Clark, Tim Fielder, Lauren-Ashley Howard, Luiz Gustavo Nostalgia, Stacey Robinson, Zaika Santos, Shannon Theus, Fausto Vanim, and Guilherme Xavier.
Turning to the East is a bold exploration of Afrofuturism and Afro-Asian connections in an increasingly connected world. The exhibition invites visitors into a metamodern dialogue that transcends geographical and cultural barriers. An online version of the exhibition showcasing the Afro-Brazilian Black Speculative Arts Movement will be organized by Zaika Dos Santos.
In this metamodern moment, we stand at the precipice of a new era, one that acknowledges the complexity of multiple realities while embracing the potential for radical change. As we navigate this landscape, these "Intersecting Futures" offer a space for contemplation and conversation. Drawing upon a range of Afrofuturist and Afro-Asian perspectives, the exhibition provides a vibrant tapestry of imaginations, aspirations, and realities.
Afrofuturism, with its potent blend of science fiction, magical realism, and African diasporic culture, offers a powerful lens through which we can interrogate the past, examine the present, and envision the future. Employing the Afrofuturist aesthetic as a conduit to explore Afro-Asian connections in the multipolar world, these artists and creators deploy this aesthetic in innovative ways that converge and diverge in their expressions of a shared vision of the future.
The exhibition is organized thematically, each section highlighting a facet of Afro-Asian connections, from shared histories and cultural exchanges to common struggles against colonization and imperialism and the collective vision of a future when power dynamics will be radically shifted.
The politics section delves into the shared struggles and solidarities of the Afro-Asian world, while the anime and film sections offer provocative narratives that challenge traditional representations and challenge stereotypical narratives.
Turning to the East is a celebration of the resilience and creativity of Afro-Asian communities. It is a call to action, a plea for unity, and a testament to the power of art to inspire change. As we stand at the crossroads of a multipolar world, this exhibition invites us to question, to dream, and to imagine a future that is not just possible but one that is emerging before our very eyes.
Inheritance, Remembrance, Resilience is an exhibition of photo-based works by artists Eileen Claveloux, Sandra Matthews, and Delilah Montoya. The artists draw on their individual cultural experiences, using family portraits to suggest how histories persist over generations. Each artist’s approach involves photographing immediate family members as well as wider circles of acquaintances. The processes employed include photographic composites, transparencies, transfers, digital manipulation, and DNA testing. The notion of diaspora weaves its way through the works of Inheritance, Remembrance, Resilience as the struggles, strength, and survival of these photographic subjects – who live in the US but represent multiple diasporic communities--are illuminated.
During the opening reception at 5 pm, there will be a one-hour musical performance by Terry Jenoure and Angelica Sanchez. Jenoure (violinist/vocalist) embarks on an untraveled road with her dynamic collaborator, Sanchez (pianist). Jenoure’s adventurous project, Secret to Life, is a series of portraits painted with sound. For this performance, through their singular freestyle jazz and songwriting, the duo shares women’s often-unheard immigrant stories invoking a celebration of life. Sometimes playful, sometimes raucous, sometimes meditative, and at other times a war cry, Jenoure and Sanchez are a force that takes us by surprise and always land us where we need to be.
The performance program is sponsored by Panther Arts Collective (PAC), performing arts initiative fund and OWWR.
Terry Jenoure, violinist and vocalist, is a 2023 Creative Capital awardee. Influences on her composing include her Puerto Rican and Jamaican heritage and numerous collaborations with Free Jazz pioneers of the Black Arts Movement. Her publications in the field of arts-based research have been referenced by more than fifty scholars internationally. She was on the graduate faculty of Lesley University for eighteen years, and concurrently was the director of Augusta Savage Art Gallery at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst for thirty years. Terry holds master’s and doctoral degrees in Education.
Angelica Sanchez, pianist, moved to New York from Arizona in 1994, and has collaborated with such notable artists as Wadada Leo Smith, Paul Motian, Richard Davis, and Nicole Mitchell. Sanchez leads groups ranging from duo to nonet, and her work has been recognized in national and international publications including Jazz Times, The New York Times, and the Chicago Tribune. Sanchez has a master’s in Jazz Arranging from William Paterson University. She is currently on the music faculty of Bard College.
Expanding our understanding of painting and sculpture, Eleanna Anagnos and Alexis Granwell team up to present Shift. Breathe. Expand. Painting in Space. Featuring works made of handmade paper, this exhibition brings forth the artists' drive and ability to shed light on the potential of this undermined medium: making it shift, making it breath, making it expand in space. Anagnos (Mexico City) and Granwell (Philadelphia) met in 2019 and engaged in a prolific exchange that would soon become friendship. Together, they explored the potential of paper pulp to challenge their own position as female contemporary artists.
Shift. Breathe. Expand. Painting in Space features works from the last decade to the present and allows the spectator to experience first hand the pillars of their unique process. In this three room installation, the viewer will have the opportunity to walk through the artists’ ongoing collaboration and experimentation with new techniques shifting from common painterly practices; their assertion and defiance towards the ‘feminine’; and their constant research on paper as a malleable, sustainable, medium, which enables us to expand our approach to painting.
A public reception for Shift. Breathe. Expand. Painting in Space is scheduled for Wednesday, September 13, 2023 between 4pm and 7pm. A performance event led by the curator and the artists will take place at 4pm, and a workshop led by the artists will allow the spectators to engage more closely with their practice will be held on Thursday, September 14.
This exhibition is curated by Tally de Orellana (London, Philadelphia).
Marisa Williamson, Sweet Chariot: The Long Journey to Freedom through Time features several videos created by Marisa Williamson for her project, Sweet Chariot (2017), originally a video scavenger hunt in the city of Philadelphia. Developed with support from MonumentLab, Sweet Chariot involved a scratch-off map and image recognition smartphone app containing pictorial and written clues to unlocking videos launched by augmented reality triggers. Sweet Chariot explores African-American historical struggles for freedom. The original project involved the walking tour map, eight immersive videos, and supplemental clues and context through the app. With these features, tourists and locals alike could discover hidden moments in the landscape of historic Philadelphia. Murals, plaques, and other markers served as signposts through time and through the neighborhood, ultimately finding the resting place of the story's main character, Amelia Brown. Sweet Chariot serves as a monument to centuries of sorrow and joy in the city of Philadelphia.
Visual Arts Department Exhibition
February 7 – March 13, 2024
Public Reception: Tuesday, February 20, 2024, 3–6 pm
The Amelie A. Wallace Gallery at SUNY Old Westbury is pleased to announce the opening of a group exhibition by students of the Visual Arts Department. Each submission is unique, ranging across media that include drawing, painting, sculpture, animation, laser-cut typography, print design, website design, photography, and video. These works were created by students who represent the foundation courses—Creative Thinking, Drawing, Introduction to Color—as well as elective courses —Painting, Sculpture, Creative Coding, Graphic Design, 3D Design, Animation, Interactive Web Design, Digital Imaging, and Digital Video. Also presented are selected papers from an art history course and two music courses. These works reflect the diversity and richness that the Visual Arts Department offers, taught by a faculty of talented and dedicated teachers. From conventional media to up-to-the-minute technology, the Department provides a solid art education to students who seek careers in the creative and artistic fields.
Some highlights include collectively made large-scale inflatable sculptures made in Introduction to Creative Thinking class (Prof. Tony Proechel), seemingly useless Readymade objects for the Chindōgu Project in Creative Thinking class (Prof. Michael Capobianco), and multiple Contour Tiling drawings inspired by Cubistic perspectives in Creative Thinking class (Prof. Elizabeth Atzberger). The self-portraits made in Painting class (Prof. Fred Fleisher) and Drawing class (Prof. Jennifer Sullivan) reveal not only fine execution, but also the ethnic diversity of our Old Westbury student body. Various projects from Electronic Media courses, Digital Animation, and Digital 3D Design (Prof. Tricia McLaughlin), Graphic Design I and II (Prof. Patty Harris), Digital Imaging and Digital Video (Prof. Lizzy DeVita), Interactive Web Design (Prof. Jude Broughan), and Creative Coding (Prof. Eric Hagan) demonstrate a wide range of creative work that requires mastery of computer software for each project, strong preparation for careers in industries that demand critical thinking.
During the run of the show, Acting class (Prof. Ed Malone) and Dance class (Prof. Teresa Fellion) will hold one class open to the public. The date and time will be announced later. The exhibition reception is scheduled for Tuesday, February 20, from 3 pm to 6 pm.
The Visual Arts Department at SUNY Old Westbury offers three degrees: BA in Visual Arts, BFA in Visual Arts, or BS in Visual Arts: Electronic Media. There are also opportunities to minor in Digital Design Marketing, Media Design, and Visual Arts. All students pursuing a degree must complete foundation courses that enable students to develop skills that improve their technique and expand their knowledge as they prepare to pursue careers in the arts. The transition from Foundation courses to Art Tutorial builds towards the students’ Capstone projects that culminate their studies. The Department also offers performing arts courses in Acting, Dance and Music. Visual Arts Department’s current Chair is Frederick Fleisher.
This exhibition is organized by Hyewon Yi, Gallery Director, assisted by student interns Angelica Abejar, Kristel Carbajal, Jordan Gonzalez, Amanda Linken, Bre’anna Mcqueen, and Janice Ospina.
Janet Taylor Pickett: Necessary Memories features the artist’s works from the 1970s to the present, including several that have never been shown to the public before. The exhibition commemorates the inauguration of the Black Studies Center and the recently accredited Black Studies major at SUNY Old Westbury, an initiative representative of the College’s strong social justice mission and racial diversity. The Black Studies Center is sponsoring the exhibition and public programs.
Reimagined is a group exhibition of works by four new adjunct faculty members of the Visual Arts Department at SUNY Old Westbury. The title of the exhibition loosely connects the underlying methods and purposes shared by these artists. Leeanna Chipana, a painter whose artistic practice revolves around her identity through her Quechua-Peruvian history and culture, creates reimagined portraits in an uncolonized contemporary world. Matthew Cronin digitally repurposed 1970s commercial photographs taken for the national retail chain JC Penny, inventing a new kind of image that reveals the artificiality underlying American middle class aspirational consumerism. Cronin reimagines these pre-existing images in order to explore the hidden function of commercially produced photographs. Through montage, multiple exposure, and in-camera manipulation, he creates new pictures that reveal what was both literally and figuratively hidden. Ramon Gil, Filipino-American designer and comic book artist and writer, shaped images of diverse communities through his wide ranging design work, helping, among many others, healthcare and education groups to use effective communication and create positive public images. His commitment to multi-culturalism is coupled with his sense of humor. Ed Malone, an Irish actor who trained under the mystic teacher Philippe Gaulier in France, brings his philosophy of direct engagement with the audience through genuine fun and pleasure like child’s play. His reimagining harks back to the pure imagination of the child within us all.
The exhibition consists of paintings and works on paper selected from several of Riccadonna’s series: Garden series, Hanging Garden series, Puzzle series, Tile series, and Plastic Pollution series. An observer and admirer of nature since childhood, as well as a critic of environmental pollution, Riccadonna composes images filled with patterns and decorations inspired by motifs she finds in nature and cities. A striking quality of Riccadonna’s work lies in her tendency to frame “close-up” views rather than wide vistas, thus creating a sense of depth with in a very shallow space. Riccadonna is significantly influenced by the P&D (Pattern and Decoration) Movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s, pioneered by Miriam Schapiro, Robert Zakanitch, and Joyce Kozloff, who reacted against Modernist constraints. Petah Coyne, Beatriz Milhazes, and Ebony Patterson have also fascinated her. Floral motifs, insects, seasonal changes, and the cycle of growth and decay are frequent subjects expressed in sumptuous color.
The Great Chain of Being: Sung Rok Choi, runs from February 7 through March 18, 2022. Choi’s digital animations reflect global crises of climate change, technological singularity, and the pandemic on dynamic screens that resonate with today’s culture of video games, cinema, and surveillance cameras. “Sung Rok Choi: The Great Chain of Being” is one of twenty final winners of the fourth international open call for the Fund for Korean Art.
David B. Smith digitally alters photographs from his daily life, and prints them onto fabric which he then crafts manually into objects and images from imaginary worlds that speak to themes of interconnection, growth, and the blending of digital and organic experiences. Visitors will be simultaneously immersed in Smith’s dream-like worlds and also invited to analyze and interact with his methods and will leave empowered to continue to create their own languages and strategies for the future of their and our worlds.
John Day's work has been involved with nature and the environment since 1980. His art practice includes installation, assemblage and drawing, focusing on wilderness experience, a concern for our relationship with nature, and the changes that we have wrought upon the natural world. In numerous journeys through forests and nature preserves in the northeast US, his encounters with natural phenomena are the source for his work, and comment on humanity's fragile, conflicted relationship with nature, with works that refer to journeying within, experiencing and confronting wilderness, revealing its mystery, power and unknowability.
Fiona Lee (b. 1986), a recent alumna of the Visual Arts Department, SUNY College at Old Westbury, documented Black Lives Matter protests in New York City and Long Island from May to July 2020. Dissatisfied with how BLM has been covered by mass media, Lee took matters into her own hands, deploying her Nikon D750 to seek authenticity amid the unfiltered truth of the protests. Lee ventured into the field every other day during her two-months of reporting, witnessing the protests unfold firsthand while committing herself to unbiased coverage.
Music of the Black Experience is a virtual exhibition devoted to highlighting the cultural contributions of Black people of the United States of America through their music. Some express the horrors of marginalization from a long line of oppression while others express a sense of pride and a desire for progress. Any song that did not cover these topics was selected to shine light on the corruption of the Music Industry, specifically the white owned record label corporations, as many of these artists fell victim to their exploitative nature. This music most importantly contains the purest accounts of what it was like and how it still is, to be Black in the United States of America.
Amelie A. Wallace Gallery, SUNY College at Old Westbury
Amelie A. Wallace Gallery, SUNY College at Old Westbury