Press Release: Richmond Art Center Announces Summer 2019 Exhibitions
Image: Top: Richard-Jonathan Nelson, Untitled, 2019. Courtesy of the Artist, Bottom: Ruth Tabancay, What’s In You and On You: Normal Flora and Pathogens (detail), 2018 Mary Jeys, Waving Hand, 2018, Dennis A. Giacovelli, Untitled (Self-Portrait), 2018. Second Class (E5) Engineman: Navy 1969- 71, Vietnam 1970.
RICHMOND, CA – June 11, 2019 – The Richmond Art Center presents exhibitions opening June 11: Discontent with Brute Force Uploading, ABOUTFACE, Parts Unseen and the 2019 Members’ Show.
Discontent with Brute Force Uploading
South Gallery
Exhibition Dates: June 11 – August 16, 2019
Richard-Jonathan Nelson’s solo exhibition examines how craft can be used to depict Black bodies in an imagined future. Through hybridizing traditional craft practices – like embroidery, weaving, and quilting – with digital art, Nelson’s work challenges the history of the mass media’s “uploading” of Black Diaspora as a monolithic culture, and reimagines the Black body as a place for futuristic progress. Nelson’s work draws reference from African-American low country herbalism, cybernetic Afrofuturism and his family’s history working with fabric.
About the Artist: Richard-Jonathan Nelson is a multi-disciplinary artist who uses textiles, video, and digital manipulation to create alternative worlds of speculative identity. His work is multi-layered, chromatically intense, and mixes images of the natural world with reference to hoodoo, queer culture, and Afrofuturism. Born in Savannah, GA (1987) and working in Oakland, CA, Nelson received his MFA from California College of the Arts in 2017. His work has been exhibited at Southern Exposure, Embark Gallery, Root Division in San Francisco and Aggregate Space in Oakland.
| ABOUTFACE Community Gallery Exhibition Dates: June 11 – August 16, 2019 This large-group exhibition brings together Veteran self-portraits from the Arts and Culture Commission of Contra Costa County’s ABOUTFACEprogram. Over 100 self-portraits will be presented, for the first time bringing together the numerous ABOUTFACE works created over multiple years of the program. Collectively the pieces form a ‘unit’ that represents the varied stories of Veterans transitioning from military to civilian life. About the program: In 2015 the Arts and Culture Commission and the Physical Rehabilitation Service at Veterans Affairs Health Care in Martinez developed ABOUTFACE to improve the lives of California’s Veterans through arts programming. Based on the belief that individuals have the capacity to heal themselves, ABOUTFACE engages Veterans through painting workshops focused on artistic skill development and self-expression. The two-day workshops are team-taught by a teaching artist and a qualified therapist, with a Veteran coordinator present. Workshop activities include meditation, peer discussion, sketching each other, and painting a final self-portrait. Parts Unseen West Gallery Exhibition Dates: June 11 – August 16, 2019 Reception: Saturday, June 8, 5-7pm This exhibition brings together recent works by three artists who received the Spotlight Award for their work in the 2018 Members’ Show: Bill Abright, Jennie Braman, and Ruth Tabancay. While working in disparate media, these artists share an interest in transfiguring and deconstructing the human form. About the Artists: Bill Abright was introduced to clay by Bruce Duke at San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton in the late 60’s. He completed his graduate degree at San Francisco State in 1974 working with Bud McKee, Stephen De Staebler, Joe Hawley, and David Kuraoka. Abright recently retired after 40 years teaching ceramics at the College of Marin. Jennie Braman is an artist and educator based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is full-time faculty in Studio Art and Art History at Berkeley City College in Berkeley, CA, and served as Chair of the Art Program for the last decade. Braman’s current drawings investigate the nature of representation and the creative language of the body. Ruth Tabancay‘s passion for science led her to study bacteriology in college, and after a stint as a hospital laboratory technologist, she went on to medical school. After 11 years in private practice, she left medicine to study art. Her works refer largely to her previous studies in microbiology, anatomy, and geometry. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley; UC School of Medicine, San Francisco; and California College of the Arts. 2019 Members’ Show Main Gallery Exhibition Dates: June 11 – August 16, 2019 Each year, the Richmond Art Center invites our members to participate in our annual Members’ Show, which is showcased in the Main Gallery. One of the oldest and largest non-juried member exhibitions in the Bay Area, this tradition presents a wide variety of media, styles, and subject matter by aspiring, emerging, and established artists, many of whom are colleagues, teachers, and students of the Richmond Art Center. |
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