.
Opening Reception: February 22 from 6pm to 10pm
.
A multimedia two-floor installation curated by Gallery Director Dolly Vehlow of GalleryOonH and Busboys and Poets Arts Curator Carol Rhodes Dyson.
Indelible: that which cannot be erased is a confrontation of an unjust and repetitive history. The works in this exhibition seek to highlight a narrative often overlooked by mainstream art history to illustrate a continuum of injustice in our nation, featuring artists working in its capital city. Inspired by Black History Month, the show seeks to focus on the cyclical nature of unresolved issues–from the legacy of slavery to modern day police overreach and violence. The works included are a visual embodiment of current events, linked to a sinister history of oppression. Indelible puts local artists to the forefront, selected to underline the long history of racial inequality within our collective past and contemporary society. Artists featured include Milton Bowens, Billy Colbert, Scott Davis, Nehemiah Dixon, Justyne Fischer and Rodney “BUCK!” Herring.
Born and raised in Oakland, Calif., Milton Bowens is a nationally recognized artist and activist who has been creating powerful work for the past 20 years with his unique brand of mixed media paintings, enveloping the viewer as witness, participant and long lost relatives.
Scott Davis is a local DC photographer who creates compact palladium prints of landscapes that were central to the history of slavery in the area—Davis’s simultaneously sinister and jewel-like images force the viewer to engage very personally with the subject, so they literally cannot hold themselves at arm’s length from the narrative.
Billy Colbert is a DC-based multimedia artist examining the negative images of Black life and culture that have corrupted the imaginations of the world’s population; through his individual pieces and installations, Colbert is “sharing moving images from the cave wall of Black America’s past.”
DC resident Justyne Fischer’s woodcuts depart from the usual associations we make with traditional printmaking processes—without the aid of a press, she burnishes and hand pulls compositions onto sheer fabric to feature “Social Memorials” of unjust events involving unarmed Black men, women and boys.
Nehemiah Dixon creates “Suits of Armor” through a process described as “freezing fabric”—Dixon uses epoxy resin based products to mold and form hoodies into sculptural forms to ask, “how can an article of clothing personify traits of humanity specific to race, class, and gender?”
Rodney “BUCK!” Herring’s bold, text-imbued paintings explore the “balance between socially conceived supermen and mythologized pariah,” investigating narratives of kinship, spirituality, and struggle that are too often marginalized.
On view:
- Tuesday 5-7:30pm
- Wednesday-Friday 12-5pm
- Saturday 11-3pm
Gallery O on H is located at 1354 H St. NE.
