BROOKLYN: Nakeya Brown

In Private Moments

April 10 – 12, 2015

Presented by Top Rank Magazine

Opening reception: Friday, April 10, 2015, 6-9PM

Hosted by AFROPUNK

Artist talk: Sunday, April 12, 2015, 4PM, Nakeya Brown in conversation with Kimberly Drew, founder of Black Contemporary Art

FIVE MYLES

558 St Johns Place

Crown Heights, Brooklyn

From Top Rank Magazine press release:

Top Rank Magazine is pleased to present In Private Moments, an exhibition of works by Nakeya Brown. This is Brown’s first solo show and her New York City debut.

In the photographic and installation works featured in In Private Moments, Brown engages with the fraught cultural politics of hair and beauty. Her pastel colored and minimally composed still-life portraits evoke the duality of emotions associated with black women’s relationship with hair maintenance and aesthetics – happiness and pain; beauty and sacrifice; collectivity and alienation. Approaching the subject matter through a feminist frame, Brown’s work focuses on the objects and rituals that black women use to construct their identities.

“As black women, there are these processes that we do, sort of in secrecy and behind doors. I wanted to bring that aspect of our lives into a space, [so] that it can be talked about and it can be looked at,” says Brown about In Private Moments.

Top Rank Magazine has selected a group of women ages 14-18 from the New York City area to participate in a portraiture workshop with Brown on April 12, 2015. Participants will work closely with the artist to produce and print their own portraits, as well as discuss the broader social issues raised in Brown’s work.

About the Artist

Nakeya Brown was born in Santa Maria, California in 1988. Her work has been exhibited at the McKenna Museum of African American Art, Woman Made Gallery, Vivid Solutions Gallery, and Mason Gross Gallery. Brown’s work has been reviewed by The Washington City Paper, African & Afro-Diasporan Art Talks, For Harriet, and has been published by international publications Hysteria and Tonelit.

About Top Rank Magazine

Top Rank Magazine is a Brooklyn based biannual publication that profiles women of diverse backgrounds who are driving, shaping, and challenging the world around them. Top Rank women are leaders in the arts, academia, social justice, technology, and fashion worlds. The publication strives to promote a culture of support and collaboration among creative women while celebrating their distinct contributions.

Exhibit Link

In Private Moments Events Link

Meet The Progressive Artist Turning Heads

Hair-Stories. New Works From Artist Nakeya B.

NEW YORK: Oluseye

Oluseye image via gallery151.com.

Oluseye: ORI

April 2 - April 23, 2015 at Gallery 151

Curated by Jae Joseph

GALLERY 151

132 West 18th Street

New York, NY

From Gallery151.com:

Oluseye is a Toronto-based visual artist from Lagos, Nigeria. He combines an interest in Yoruba culture and geometry as a reference to explore universal themes of sexuality, spirituality and identity.

In his first body of work, ORI, he deconstructs and reinterprets notions of the Yoruba term and concept: Ori, literally translated as ‘head’ – the physical attributes including the brain and sensory organs Ori, the mental faculties (intellect, imagination, memory) Ori, the emotional nucleus (conscience, compassion, attraction and sexuality) and Ori, a metaphysical concept that represents the essence of one’s being and individuality – an immaterial force that determines personality and destiny.

By melding these ideas he creates a visual narrative in which concepts of identity & being, body & mind, sex & sexuality, the physical & spiritual are vital and fluid constituents of Ori. As per Yoruba doctrine, ‘Iwa-pele’ – a concept comparable to Maslow’s theory of self-actualisation – is realised only when there is balance amongst these constituents. Working in a monochromatic palette, Oluseye captures a raw and primeval sensibility that evokes mood and an unsettling otherworldly consciousness. He portrays in his subjects a physical-spiritual identity by distorting and combining human, sculptural and mask elements. Each Ori is singular in appearance and experience. However, they are bound together by a metaphoric “geometric chaos”, and a collective sense of vulnerability, melancholy and empathy.

Exhibit Link

CHICAGO: Sight and Semblance / Friday, December 12, 2014

A POP-UP ART EXHIBIT CURATED BY LAMONT HAMILTON

Friday, December 12, 2014, 7:00 – 10:00PM

1410 North Milwaukee Avenue

Chicago, IL

Sight and Semblance is a photo based exhibition that calls attention to the disparate yet interlocking medium of photography.

The images range from montage and appropriation to vérité and features works by Rashayla Marie Brown, RJ El, Lamont Hamilton, Esau McGhee, Yaw and avery r young.

BROOKLYN: Imani Shanklin Roberts

Imani Shanklin Roberts, Black & Gold, Acrylic and gold leaf on canvas, 16 x 16 inches. 

An Ode to Her

Saturday, November 8, 2014, 6-10pm

THE FREEMAN SPACE

155 Freeman Street

Brooklyn, NY

From press release:

Imani Shanklin Roberts is pleased to present a one-night pop-up exhibit, An Ode to Her, a body of work that underpins the beauty, vibrancy, and infinite layers of the African-American woman.

Roberts unearths an Afrofuturism theme through portraiture which functions as a space for viewers to engage in conversation on the usage of the black female body in popular culture.

An Ode to Her creates a visual space where viewers can relish in the power, sensuality, grace, and cultural splendor of day-to-day African American women.

Imani Shanklin Roberts has a BFA/MS in Art Education from Pratt Institute. She has exhibited in various spaces in the Washington, DC area and in 2012 was named one of the “Best Up-and-Coming Artists in DC” by CBS DC. As an artist and educator, Roberts seeks to create and facilitate relevant work that encourages ideas of self-realized liberation. Her distinct aesthetic empowers her viewers to deconstruct limitations and think beyond while embracing their cultural identities.