Weeping Moon (2015) by Michaela Pilar Brown. Courtesy of Honfleur Gallery..
Opening Reception: Friday, December 9 from 6pm to 9pm
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Things Get Lost by Michaela Pilar Brown
Identity Politics, Imagined Histories, and Black Womanhood
December 9, 2016 – January 28, 2017
Identity politics have taken on renewed importance the past few years with the polarizing presidential election and increased mainstream awareness of institutionalized violence on communities of color. Artist Michaela Pilar Brown’s work has long grappled with issues attendant to the black body and its relationship to larger cultural themes of age, gender, race, sexuality, history, and violence.
In Things Get Lost, Brown assembles photography, collage, and installation artworks that examine the collecting of heirloom objects as a means of identity construction and the building of personal, familial, and community history. The result is a surreal counter-narrative to American history that re-centers black female subjectivity.
Brown is a multidisciplinary artist using photography, installation and performance. Born in Maine and raised in Denver, Colorado, she cut her teeth in the halls of a museum where her mother worked as a security guard. Brown studied sculpture and art history at Howard University and now has a full time studio practice in South Carolina. Brown is a member of the board of directors of the Friends of African American Art and Culture of the Columbia Museum of Art. This past summer, she was an Artist in Residence at Sedona Arts Center in Arizona and at the Kunstlerwerkgemeinschaft in Germany. This is Brown’s first exhibition in DC sine 2001.
Honfleur Gallery is contemporary fine art gallery that opened in 2007, located at 1241 Good Hope Road SE. For more information, visit https://www.honfleurgallery.com/.
Hole in Bucket (2016) by Benita Elliott. Courtesy of Vivid Solutions Gallery.Sweet Air of Liberty: Freedom in More Than 3 Acts by Photographer Benita Elliott
December 9, 2016 – January 28, 2017
Photographer Benita Elliott exhibits a new collection of work in Sweet Air of Liberty: Freedom in More Than 3 Acts. This new series draws deeply from religious roots of African American heritage and cultural traditions predating and following the Civil Rights Era.
Elliott is a native Washingtonian who came of age during the civil rights era of the 1960s. Her work is influenced greatly by what she describes as “the siren call to Freedom.” Using photographs and digital collage, Elliott explores American concepts of “freedom” and the “promised land” with the memory of her and her 2016 lens.
A DC native, Elliott is a professional photographer currently living in Los Angeles. Her fine art photography is in a number of private collections and past clients for commercial projects have included Charles Drew University, World Stage Youth Jazz Ensemble, Make A Film Foundation, BET, and American Black Film Festival. Elliott has received awards from the Norman Menes Academy Scholarship, the DC Commission for the Arts, and Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.
Vivid Solutions Gallery is located at 1231 Good Hope Road SE. For more information, visit https://www.vividsolutionsgallery.com/.
