HILLYER

Neville Barbour: Blessings in Gray

A review by Elsabé Dixon

Neville Barbour states:

Blessings in Gray “is a visual exploration of the narratives that define us. It explores what it is to be human and remarks on the ambivalence of that perspective. Neville explores how conflict can take us out of our comfort zone, yet become a force for change.”

CONVERSATIONS ABOUT STORY IMAGES

Every Image tells a story, but the good stories sometime need more time and attention to unfold fully. On a winter Friday afternoon in February of 2023, I spoke to Neville Barbour about the nine realistic figure drawings in his solo show at the Hillyer Gallery in Washington, DC. Each drawing seemed to hold complex symbols one could recognize, but the arrangements seemed to have a structure that made what you were looking at almost “abstract”.

A figure with angel wings, standing against the backdrop of a large detailed moon is simply called Monday, and Barbour explains that he has just become a father, and that having a child makes Monday more palatable. I did a double take… how does that statement connect to a mystical angel winged figure standing as if on a stage in front of a large projection of the moon with its pitted and cratered surface? The detail was exquisite, but what is the meaning exactly? A mixture of satellite imagery, with what looks like a historic priestess figure from an old opera photograph and the Art Nuevo wings from a stained glass window were the only references I had in front of me. Like a random but complex dream sequence/Dada image, perhaps what Barbour is saying is that one should not look at his images as you look at a Dutch still-life with defined and absolute symbols, but instead take an emotional stance. How does the title, Monday, and this winged figure against the backdrop of the moon resonate with YOU, the viewer? 

I was curious – where would this conversation to clarify meaning lead? The second image we both looked at was Trap Wednesday.  A masked African American male figure sits on a white throne with a black crow on his shoulder and horns, sticking out from under a long white beard. His fingers and neck is adorned with gold and the word “love” is formed on the right hand, and the word “hate” is formed by the rings on the left hand. A spear with an engraved face, leans up against the left leg of the throne. Next to the figure sits a large, hairy dog.  Again, Barbour was very forthcoming about being an African American male artist in DC, and that in being so there is always the question around the philosophical statement of “doing the right thing.”  He said he based this seated character loosely on Spike Lee. Behind the seated figure is what looks like an Aztec or Mesopotamian Symbol in gold.

St George the Dragon depicts an equestrian figure riding not a horse, but an African steer. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, George’s slaying of the dragon may be a Christian version of the legend of Perseus, who was said to have rescued Andromeda from a sea monster. It is a theme much represented in art, the saint frequently being depicted as a youth wearing knight’s armor with a scarlet cross. While Barbour depicts the rider’s lower half as a replica of the medieval armor of St. George, the top half reveals a bear chested rider with patterned dots often associated with tribal coming-of-age rites. This mixture of West African mythology and an equestrian war figure, or Saint-to-stave-off-evil, can become a nuisance during times of peace, stated Barbour.  And I was reminded again not to tag the symbols as real meaning, but to glide on them as clouds float across a horizon.

You Remind Me depicts a beautiful, professionally dressed, African American seated female figure, with a fox fur around her neck. She is placed in front of a traditional enlarged checkered pattern. This, Barbour claims, is a dialogue between generations. Old photographs, Barbour says, often make one recall those who live in the present.  Perhaps the most compelling drawing in this series is a drawing of six children. Five small black boys stand in the background, while a young girl with a patterned dress curls up with two muzzled hyenas looking straight at the viewer.  The title, Lord of the “Flys” conjures up the title of William Golding’s novel. Barbour discloses that he grew up surrounded by strong female figures. “Hyenas are a matriarchal symbol and moves away from the concept of the patriarchal lion. This animal changes the viewpoint. Expands one’s perspective,” he says. 

Fisherman of Souls, depicts an old man in a triangle looking straight at the viewer, with a landscape in the background and two abstract white circles floating in the foreground toward the left and the right of the old man. Two heads (represented by the circles) – New Baby (Personal experience) – Old Man (Perhaps, a way of looking back at the Old Year and looking toward the New Year, 2023). Idia, shows a young girl with eyes diverted. Barbour says he has become fascinated by the role Africa played in participating in the slave trade. “We live in a society where not everyone can win, where there is no good choice,” says Barbour.  Salt, is named for the thing that allows us to “taste”. Far from the “Morton’s Salt Girl” in a raincoat under an umbrella, this drawing depicts a sultry and confident young lady in cascading silks, shading herself from the African sun. The next drawing, Janus, depicts the Roman God as an African American man in medieval armor. Janus is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, frames, and endings. 

Every drawing in this exhibition holds known symbols, but they become plastic and ephemeral. They are not static, but instead become less concrete and more malleable. In many ways, these drawings turn on its head the way we look at figurative work. It takes the images that we see, and the meaning we tie to it, and push it into the background. These figurative images – that reiterate symbols, pushing at the outer limitations of symbols and all the multiple meanings they can hold –  translate into widening perspectives and larger cultural doorways. 

Neville Barbour
Archetypes
March 4-April 2, 2023
IA&A at Hillyer

To learn more about the artist visit nevillebarbour.com

in Uncategorized 0 comments

Newly Selected Artists, July 2022

Gabrielle Lajoie-Bergeron

Mascha-Le Gros Party

 

Mascha – Le gros Party questions the notion of celebration in the intimate, public, and political space. Highlighting evocative traces of a past event, this vivid new corpus allows us to imagine a universe in itself. Inspired by the figure of the “mascha” — the etymological root of the word “mask,” also meaning witch in Low Latin — the exhibition marshals a vast diversity of works, including a number of faux-visages (false faces) made of various materials. “Le gros party” is a French expression meaning, in common parlance, “the big party.” Inspired by festivities and their rituals, the project questions notions of overflow and excess, and the flashpoint at which fiction and reality overlap. It is about identity, power, and relationships. If the party makes it possible to become someone else — to live a rite of passage — what happens when the event overflows beyond the dancing, the singing, the feast, and the simple drinking? The big party invoked by Lajoie-Bergeron refers to the capricious masquerade that we offer in our time, when the celebration begins to lose its glamor and to lurch into incipient violence and other abuses.

Kate Fitzpatrick

There is no anagram for the word anagram 

An anagram is a word formed by rearranging the letters of a different word, using all the letters. Any word that exactly uses those letters in another order is called an anagram. Whether as a literary game, cipher, mysterious verse, or poetry, anagrams provide a channel for making new meaning out of fixed ideas. Anagrams are anchored to their assigned positions and are limited due to their language rules, which are based on a collectively agreed-upon system.

There is no anagram for the word anagram playfully explores the idea of language and meaning by using an imaginary sign system to take the form of text, images, and objects, to break down the construction of our own arbitrary reality. The graphic potential of a sign invites the viewer to consider the possibilities that exist in arrangements that fill in the gap between image and text to explore meaning. In this exhibition, paintings, games, video, and objects offer a dynamic by which to wonder and to create personal meaning through indecipherable signs, which become a vessel for schema and a pathway to search and interpret.

Kristin Adair

Unconditional

Unconditional is a multimedia exploration of the legacy of love that we carry within us as human beings. We are the accumulation of the relationships that came before us, that brought us into the world. Through the pandemic, I have investigated my love map through the lens of a box of letters my grandfather wrote to my grandmother while he was stationed in the South Pacific for three years during World War II. I weave a tapestry of images in both paper and video form, including archival images that my grandfather made during his deployment and other found materials, with visual explorations of my own body, examining the experience during the two years of the pandemic of isolation and my own search for connection and true love. The series Unconditional uses both physical and digital manipulation to combine old and new photographs with archival and new audio, weaving stories of the past — those that live inside of me, the present, and the future of my own latent lineage.

in 2022 / Artist Highlight / Artist Interviews / Uncategorized 0 comments

I Love to Hate You: Q & A with Damon Arhos

Damon Arhos presents I Love to Hate You as an extension of his art practice, which seeks to expose the destructive nature of prejudice and uses his identity as a gay American as its frame. A native of Austin, Texas, Arhos explores how individual experiences influence gender roles, sexual orientation, and human relationships. A graduate of Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore with an MFA in Studio Art, Arhos lives and works in the Washington, DC metro area.

damonarhos.com

You work in a variety of mediums. Can you discuss your process in determining what materials and media are most effective in creating your vision and delivering the message as a whole?

When I began working as an artist, I was a painter. Over the years, as my work evolved to address issues of identity, I began to realize that many of the ideas I wanted to express would translate better in other mediums. This is not to say that painting is not an effective way of providing a thought-provoking experience. I just decided to challenge myself to explore other ways of doing things—and, as such, in addition to painting, began producing sculpture, installation, videos, etc. Today, I consider myself an interdisciplinary artist. I always begin with the end— knowing what idea I want to convey to a viewer—and then analyze different options for putting things together. Sometimes I decide upon one way of doing things, and then in the middle of the process change course, as I find another approach or medium might work better. Most importantly, I never have a blueprint, so to speak, and have found that much of my reward as an artist is through the process of investigation.

Why are duality and conflicting narratives such important themes throughout your works?

I am one artist among many who use their work to highlight ways in which our culture opposes itself. Of course, we all have our own viewpoints that we use as bases for our art practices. With my own, I have chosen to explore issues of gender roles, sexual orientation, and human relationships given my identity as a gay American. We live in a time when those of us who are part of the LGBTQ community see so many dichotomies. For example, we can discuss the June 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that established same-sex marriage in all 50 states versus the June 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida. From my perspective, these two events—which occurred approximately one year apart—represent affirmation and rejection, the landmark of love and inclusion versus the tragedy of hatred and discrimination. Historically, these types of puzzling conflicts have existed for centuries. However, via my own art practice, I hope to show others what it is like to experience these contradictions every day.

Your work often references historical events or cultural symbols. Do you find that current conditions also influence themes in your works and artistic practices?

Always! As an artist, and in the context of creating contemporary art, I do not believe that the past—in and of itself—is enough to capture and sustain anyone’s attention. In addition, I also do not believe that my own personal story is so compelling that it will captivate those who view my work. As such, I consistently aim to make my work relevant in the present moment and to access some common cultural experience. This certainly does not mean that I do not appropriate my own understanding of the history of art or my own life experiences. And, ultimately, even if I have my own overlay upon the work, viewers are bringing their own perspectives to it—which makes it even more important to strike a familiar chord. For me, the fun is in drawing the viewer in with something they think they know, then twisting this narrative so that their experience is completely different.

Why do you think it is so important to show the effects of prejudice in relation to modern-day issues and concerns?

I cannot deny that I am a pretty emotional guy. It never has taken a lot to hurt my feelings. And, over the years, I have been on the receiving end of bigoted behavior many times per my sexual orientation. While these situations definitely helped me grow, I never will forget how they made me feel sadness, isolation, and anger. Now that I am older, I more fully understand myself and others. I also know how to turn these types of experiences (when they happen, and sometimes they still do) into something more positive and more powerful. I often think of my younger self trying to sort through all of this, and hope that somehow, my work will help change outcomes for others. Ultimately, I know that prejudice creates and extends human suffering, and this is something that we all should work to eradicate.

With this exhibition, do you aim to reach particular audiences, perhaps those who have less immediate experience of the HIV/AIDS crisis?

I meant for the paintings in this exhibition to speak to the stigma of HIV/AIDS, highlighting the fact that the shame and humiliation associated with the disease persists. Of course, many years have passed since the epidemic began, and the many issues associated with it have evolved. However, as we all have diverse experiences of HIV/AIDS given our ages and life experiences, so too do we have differing awareness of these matters. The paintings provide a platform for discussion among everyone on this continuum of knowledge, as each has something to gain from these interactions. It is no accident that they depict that which is quite mundane—the bottle for a pill that manages, rather than cures, this disease. Everyone knows what it is like to take medication. Yet, does everyone know what it is to live with HIV/AIDS? And, what responsibilities, if any, does the work bestow once its seen? Do you glance and move along—or contemplate, discuss, and initiate change? Each of us must decide.

in 2018 / Artist Interviews 0 comments

Nine Patch: Q&A with Olivia Tripp Morrow

Olivia Tripp Morrow received her BFA in sculpture at Syracuse University, graduating cum laude in December of 2012. Her most recent works are video and sculptural installations that address concepts relating to beauty, intimacy, memory, sexuality, and the commodification of women’s bodies. Morrow’s work primarily utilizes found and donated textiles as material, which are imbued with social and cultural values as well as personal histories. Through her work, Morrow draws connections between status quo notions of beauty/luxury and the perpetuation of harmful social norms and expectations placed on women and girls.  Morrow’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and she has permanent installations and works on-loan at the National Institute of Health’s Clinical Center in Bethesda, MD, the Anacostia Arts Center in Washington, DC, and the Arlington Art Center in Arlington, VA, where she is a current Resident Artist.

www.otmorrow.com

Your work addresses the human body and the experiences of human bodies through abstract installations. Can you tell us a bit about how you arrived at this theme?

The core of my work and studio practice comes from a personal context. I was twelve when I discovered that my body was perceived by my peers as a mishmash of individual physical parts entirely separate from each other, and which could be rated according to a numerical scale. In high school I learned that my value as a person could be defined entirely by my physical appearance. As an adolescent, my appeal for perfectionism mutated into a crippling fear of making mistakes or being perceived by others as inadequate—physically or otherwise. (This was before smart phones or Instagram, so I would imagine it’s only getting harder for young girls today.) Grappling with notions of beauty, bodies, and intimacy, as well as social structures that attempt to exclude and invalidate people who don’t fit neatly into conventional measures of beauty, have been important to why I create work and what I want it to do.

It’s practically impossible to filter out the incessant bombardment of media and advertisements that reinforce harmful and equally narrow definitions of beauty, bodies, and gender-appropriate behaviors, all of which normalize obsessive fixations on so-called imperfections and breed exclusivity. Once I realized what I was looking at I saw it everywhere: relentless reminders to buy whatever product or thing that would seem to simultaneously present and offer solutions to the apparently boundless inadequacies of my appearance. This subliminal conditioning can be highly effective, but knowing what strings these industries are trying to pull at can at least give us a chance to resist them.

What is the purpose of using donated materials in your work?

For the past few years my work has been driven by donated women’s clothing, undergarments, bedsheets, and other used textiles that I began collecting in 2015. Along with these donated items, many women shared personal stories associated with them: Fond memories of family, travel, and past lovers were contrasted with darker recollections such as an outfit that someone was wearing when they were assaulted. Like much of my favorite work by Sonia Gomes, Shinique Smith, and Senga Nengudi, whose found and donated materials seemed dense with meaning upon arrival, the donated textiles I received were imbued with personal history, familial tradition, social narrative, and political context.

In the context of the current exhibition at Hillyer, Crochet II is a single-channel looped video that utilizes a blanket that was crocheted by my great-grandmother. The significance of the blanket itself lies in its personal and familial sentimentality, and implications of domesticity. The intricate, open floral patterning of the blanket and mesmerizing shapes that at times resemble female genitalia might give the initial impression that it is delicate and decorative. However, its actual strength and durability defy these assumptions once it’s discovered that a person is moving around underneath, pulling and stretching the fabric to its limit. Similarly, the five printed photo quilts in Nine Patch are comprised of thousands of selfies taken while underneath used crocheted blankets, and simultaneously conceal and reveal my body.

While I grew up using crocheted blankets and handmade quilts as functional objects that were made by family members and passed down over generations, I never saw them being made by those family members. By the time I was born, the generation that labored over these textiles had passed, and their tradition and skill set largely disappeared with them. It was only as an adult that I began to consider the labor that went into their creation, and all the implications of that labor in the context of times and places that I never lived in.

Do you plan out your ideas meticulously before making an installation, or are you more improvisational? Can you take us through your creative process?

My materials and their physical properties guide my formal decisions while creating new work. I spend a lot of time experimenting with and discovering the limits of materials, such as how much something will stretch or bend, the weight something can hold, the shapes it can take, the way it might transform in different spaces. Even when I have a clear idea about some new piece or body of work, I rely on my intuition and remain willing to abandon parts of the work in exchange for a potential discovery that I might not find otherwise. Executing procedural steps has never been very exciting to me, so it’s often the curiosity about “what would happen if...” that leads me forward in my studio. There’s freedom in this process; permission for boldness, taking risks, and failure from which better ideas are (sometimes) born.

image

You entered art school to study painting and illustration. What drove you to make a shift into abstract installations?

Having started my early work as a painter, I am influenced by formal techniques of painting: color used to create receding or expanding space, light that reveals/conceals, and the varied expressions of human emotion. But as a freshman in college I found working exclusively with paint and 2D surfaces limiting. I wanted to get lost in experimentation with new materials and processes, so I transferred to the Sculpture department. I am also captivated by the potential for artwork to completely transform my relationship to objects and physical space. Exploring scale and spatial relationships and considering the ways we navigate spaces translates well into this medium. In my third year as an undergraduate student, I realized that it was possible to essentially make “paintings” that people could walk under, around, or through, and which could be experienced differently from a multitude of perspectives. Installation has dominated my practice ever since.

What concepts are you currently exploring in your studio, and what kind of work can we expect to see from you in the future?

Lately I’ve been working really hard to push past certain comfort zones in my studio practice. The photo quilts in Nine Patch and the work I made for a simultaneous two-person show (called Within/Between, with artist Jen Noone at the Arlington Art Center) were an important departure from that comfort zone. While making work for Within/Between, one of the things that both Jen and I were reflecting on in our own way was materiality and function. One of my pieces (Ribbon House, 2018) is a large, shelter-like structure that is robust and meticulously constructed using scrap and found wood. Instead of hardware or glue, the structure is held together with materials normally considered decorative or inane: ribbons and beads.

It was a huge challenge to put these two exhibitions together within a week of each other, but the works in each were influenced by each other, so it feels really good to have them open simultaneously. Right now, I am in the middle of changing studios, but I’m excited to start a new residency at the Arlington Art Center and to get back to work.

in 2018 / Artist Interviews 0 comments

Measuring the Weight of Longing: Q & A with Gayle Friedman

Gayle Friedman is an artist who was raised in Birmingham, Alabama. She lives and works in Washington, DC. For the past decade she’s been a jeweler, teacher, and the founder of Studio 4903, a group art studio space.  Friedman received a DC Commission on Arts and Humanities Fellowship Award in 2017. In addition to her solo exhibition at Hillyer, Friedman also has work in the exhibition “Intimate Gathering” opening June 2, at WAS Gallery in Bethesda, MD. Friedman is an artist in residence at Red Dirt Studio in Mt. Rainier, MD.

gaylefriedmanart.com

You often present your ceramic work in tableaus inside boxes, much like jewelry. How has making jewelry informed your work?

I actually see a lot of jewelry in my work—some of it shows up in the techniques I use that are taken directly from metalsmithing, such as incorporating soldered chains in a piece, or using rivets to cold-connect things. I also use sterling silver and even gemstones in some of my work. Several of the pieces in this show incorporate wire to attach or wrap things—all common in jewelry-making.

In this show I’m working with a lot of previously used things—I find their historical and emotional content very compelling. I do the same thing with a lot of my jewelry. In fact, I love working with people who want me to take something they’ve got and transform it into something more relevant or that they can use in a new way. Several years ago I made a series of reclaimed fur pieces that began when a friend gave me a collar from one of her grandmother’s fur coats.

Finally, I think I pay attention to minute details much as a jeweler does, which is easier to do when a piece is small. However, I’m excited to be going larger and breaking free of some of the size, weight and even balance restrictions necessary when making functional jewelry.

image

Tools are a dominant motif in your work. Can you talk a little bit about your fascination with tools in general?

The tools go way back to my early childhood. Summers in Alabama are hot and I’d go down beneath my grandparents’ house to the dirt-floored basement to cool off and play at Papa Izzy’s workbench. I can still smell it—that kind of musty, iron aroma. He owned a hardware store before the depression and had quite a collection of tools. Just the objects themselves fascinated me. I remember being especially fond of the vice and his hammers. After he died, dad got all of his tools and created a really cool shop in our basement, where I’d often go to seek refuge. Dad was always doing projects around the house but he never showed me and I never asked how to use any of his stuff. It sure made an impression on me, though.

And after he died, what I most wanted were some of his old tools. At the time I had no idea what I’d do with them. All of the work I’m doing now began when I made a mold of dad’s ball peen hammer and began casting clay replicas of it.

What does your process look like when making your Delftware pieces? Does your photography of decomposing and broken plant materials inform how you treat porcelain?

I studied Anthropology in college and did several digs in Alabama during and after school. I spent a lot of time in the dirt, searching for the tiniest pieces of information. Almost everything we found was broken.

Many of the things I make feel like artifacts, and while they’re not necessarily dirty, I often tear or break them because I figure that just about everything ends up that way. Sometimes I’ll break something on purpose and glue it back together again. Many of the delft pieces in my mom’s collection broke over the years, and one of my dad’s chores was to glue them back together. In fact, this week, a vase he had repaired broke apart again and I had to re-glue it. It was so strange to think that he was the last person to have paid close attention to this crack; his hands were the last to touch the glued surfaces and now I was revisiting them. It felt so intimate, like we were having a conversation.

I’m enamored with my compost pile and find the decay to be quite beautiful. The rust I use in many pieces is a part of that process of decay in metal. We tend to think of metal as dead, but I really like how inanimate materials also have a sort of life that shows up through time and their disintegration or exposure to oxygen.

Tell us about your experiences with Studio 4903. Does sharing studio space with other artists impact your work?

I am so happy to work in shared art studio spaces. I founded Studio 4903 12 years ago because I didn’t want to work out of my home. I wanted to be part of a community of people who I could problem solve with, bounce ideas off of, be inspired by. I also have a firm belief that many together can accomplish much more than an individual on her own. Interestingly, I’m now in two shared studio spaces! I’ve been doing an artist residency at Red Dirt for about a year and a half, and it’s there that I’ve expanded my process beyond creating jewelry.

I find it really interesting how working in proximity to others can affect my work in subtle ways: I’ll try a color of paint I’ve never used before, or tear something and realize that one of my studio mates tears and cuts a lot of her work. And then there’s the conversations we have, sometimes in structured meetings or critiques, but often over a quick lunch or chance encounter. The dialogue helps shape who I am as an artist. I’m curious by nature so I want to know what others think and feel—about what they’re doing as well as about my work. These moments give me ideas, things to incorporate or reject, often a new or better way of looking at my work. They can be very challenging and even crazy-making, but I love it all!

image

How has your work evolved over time? What are your next steps in your body of work?

Many people don’t know that I was making ceramic sculpture back in the 90’s. I got lured away from the studio to help found an alternative school, Fairhaven School, in Prince George’s County, where I spent 7 years. When I left the school I knew I wanted to immerse myself in a creative practice again, but didn’t really know where to begin. My ceramic pieces had begun large but had gotten smaller over the years, so it seemed natural to explore jewelry. I loved the idea that I could create these intimate art pieces that people would literally carry on their bodies. Early on I made more conceptual jewelry, such as a series on waste and luxury. One example from that series is a pair of plunger earrings made of silver and terra cotta clay, with a tiny diamond hidden up inside the clay part of the plunger—as if any plunger could tuck away something as precious as that! But I really wanted to have a larger audience for my jewelry, so I began making more functional, accessible work.

More recently I’ve realized that I have different kinds of questions I want to try and answer. That’s where I feel most engaged right now. I’m interested in how people in other cultures treat, use and discard family items and heirlooms. I’m going to spend time doing some research on that and see how I might be able to collaborate with anthropologists and artists.

I’ve also been interested in doing more mantel installations. I think there are lots of people who’ve stored things in boxes because they don’t want to throw them away, but don’t know what to do with them. I’d love to collaborate with them and their stuff—to open those boxes and reimagine those things in new ways.

in 2018 / Artist Interviews 0 comments