Richmond Art Center
Richmond Art Center

Press Release: Richmond Art Center announces the appointment of José R. Rivera as Executive Director

RICHMOND, CA: The Richmond Art Center is pleased to announce the appointment of José R. Rivera to the position of Executive Director. Board of Directors President Patricia Guthrie said: “Mr. Rivera brings a wealth of management experience and a deep commitment to the arts and community which we feel will help move the Richmond Art Center forward at a time of great societal change.” Mr. Rivera’s hire comes after an extensive search involving the Board of Directors, RAC Staff, and community members.

Press Release: Richmond Art Center Awarded Three California Arts Council Grants

State funds support in-school and after-school art programs, as well as a new artist residency at RAC

Richmond, CA: The California Arts Council announced grant awards totaling $57,000 to Richmond Art Center (RAC). The grants RAC will receive are Artists in Communities, Artists in Schools, and Youth Arts Action.

Artists in Schools and Youth Arts Action grants will support RAC’s in-school and after-school art programs in Richmond schools this upcoming school year. The Artists in Communities grant will fund, in part, an artist residency, youth art photography class and exhibition at RAC.

Press Release: Dewey Crumpler: Crossings

The inventive power of Dewey Crumpler’s shipping containers

Richmond Art Center
2540 Barrett Avenue, Richmond, CA 94804
Gallery Hours: Tues-Sat, 10am – 5pm

Exhibition: March 31 – May 30, 2020
Reception: Saturday, March 28, 5-7pm
Artist Talk: Saturday, May 2, 11am
Location: Main Gallery

RICHMOND, CA: The Richmond Art Center announces Dewey Crumpler: Crossings, the first survey of Dewey Crumpler’s ‘shipping container’ work to be exhibited in the Bay Area. The exhibition will include over 120 works that ask us to consider the history, lived legacy and future impact of the global shipping industry.

Press Release: Art of the African Diaspora

Featuring Over 150 Artists of African Descent

Richmond, CA: The Richmond Art Center announces Art of the African Diaspora, an exhibition featuring over 150 artists of African Descent. The exhibition will be on view in the Richmond Art Center’s Main and West Galleries from January 14 through to March 13, 2020. This exhibition will be accompanied by self-guided open studio tours and satellite exhibitions at 30 different venues across the Bay Area. 

Exhibition: January 14 – March 13, 2020
Artistic Achievement Awardees’ Talk: Saturday, January 25, 12:30-2pm
Reception: Saturday, January 25, 2-5pm
Featured Speaker Event: Saturday, February 1, 12:30-2pm
Closing Party: Friday, March 13, 3-5pm

Richmond Art Center
2540 Barrett Avenue, Richmond, CA 94804
Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10am – 5pm

Events Around the Bay Area
Open Studios: 
Saturday, February 29 and Sunday, March 1; Saturday, March 7 and Sunday, March 8; and Saturday, March 14 and Sunday, March 15, 2020
Satellite Exhibitions: Throughout January, February and March 2020

Art of the African Diaspora was formerly known as The Art of Living Black. The Steering Committee of artists that produces the event announced the name change as a reflection of the new energy behind the event, which was founded in 1997 by the late Jan Hart-Schuyers and late Rae Louise Hayward. 

“The name The Art of Living Black belongs to the late founders’ families,” explains Stephen Bruce, artist and chair or the Steering Committee. “We remain dedicated to the spirit of Jan and Rae and will honor them by producing a stellar community event for artists of African descent. However, the time has come for us to have a name that will allow us the autonomy to grow and reflect this new era for the event. ”

In 2020, special events for the Art of the African Diaspora at the Richmond Art Center include an artist talk with Artistic Achievement Awardees KaliMa AmilakZoë Boston, and Abi Mustapha on Saturday, January 25, 12:30-2pm, followed by a reception featuring live music from 2-5pm. A featured speaker event (speaker tba) will happen Saturday, February 1, 12:30-2pm with the 2021 Artistic Achievement Awardees to be announced.

This year over 95 artists will participate in open studios and satellite exhibitions. Venues hosting artists include Bridge Storage and ArtSpace (Richmond), CoBiz (Richmond), Creative Framing and Gallery (Oakland), Dorks Tec Café (Berkeley), Ethnic Notions Fine Art Gallery (Vallejo), Joyce Gordon Gallery (Oakland), JPosh Designs (Oakland), SHOH Gallery (Berkeley), and Village Theatre Art Gallery (Danville). Details about the off-site exhibitions and open studios can be found in the Art of the African Diaspora guide, published January 2020.

KaliMa Amilak is one of 2020’s Artistic Achievement Awardees. She acknowledges Art of the African Diaspora is an important opportunity for emerging artists, “When I received the award for me what that meant… was a reiteration to keep going. Keep going with my art. Keep going with expanding as an artist in my career. It’s an affirmation in moving forward.”

Participating Artists: AkeemRaheem, Aneu’re, AnttonioDesigns, Ester M. Armstrong, Jason Austin, Latisha Baker, Irene Bee Kain, Derrick Bell, Randolph Belle, Jae Me Bereal, Charles Blackwell, Lorraine Bonner, Zoë Boston, Donna Meke’da Bradley, J.B. Broussard, Cedric Brown, Floyd Brown, Marguerite Browne, Valerie Brown-Troutt, Stephen Bruce, Lawrence Buford, Melanin Buford, Ron Calime, Orin Carpenter, Marsha Carter, Elishes Cavness III, Celise, Toshia Christal, Claude Lockhart Clark, Lottye Clayton, Gary Collins, Tiffany Conway (Project Get Free), Zwanda Cook, Kelvin Curry, Diamela Cutino, Patricia Daigre McGee, Bill A. Dallas, Jim Dennis, Pete Dent, Doitshā, Gene Dominique, Angela Douglas, Anna W. Edwards, Louise Terry Eubanks, Jimi Evins, Candi Farlice, Vaughn Filmore, a. d. floyd, Naomi Floyd, Kaya Fortune, Donna Gatson, Carla Golder, Grandma’s Hands, Renata Gray, Stephen Greer, Charles Harlins, Raven Harper, Nannette Y. Harris-Jones, Idris Hassan, Raymond L. Haywood, Evelyn Hicks, Karla Higgins, Rose Hill, Yolanda Holley, Mitchell Howard, Ozell Hudson Jr, Steve Hurst, Pam Jackson, Kimberly V. Johnson, Michael Johnson, Will Johnson, Virginia Jourdan, JPosh Aubry (Janina), KaliMa Julien, Val Kai, Jessica Keener, Travis “Trav Lyrics” Keeton, H Lenn Keller, Leon Kennedy, Dana King, James Knox, Dulama LeGrande, Jennifer A. Lockette, Maalak, Alix J. Maglorie, Ajuan Mance, Andrea McCoy Harvey, Shonna McDaniels, Genesse McGaugh, Susan McGuire, Brianna Mills, James Moore, Abi Mustapha, Mychal, Halisi Noel-Johnson, Arthur Norcome, Carla Oden, Kwadwo Otempong, Elmarise Owens, Sean Papillion, Pat Patterson, Yolanda ThaSun Patton, Raife Pickett, Cori Nicole Pillows, Damon Powell – Artist &Theologian, Rais, Kumi Rauf, Gwendolyn Reed, Marva Reed, Ashlei Reign, Justice Renaissance, Julee Richardson, Joseph Robinson, Dawn Rudd, Wanda Sabir, Ronnie Sampson, Ron Moultrie Saunders, Jabali Sawicki, Yasmin Sayyed, Malik Seneferu, Malik Seneferu, Osaze Seneferu, Shanju, James Shorter, Akili Simba, Thomas Robert Simpson, Bertrell Smith, Karen Smith, Chanell Stone, Mark Sublett, Thomas Tandy, Stephanie Thames, Atiba Sylvia Thomas, Mildred Thompson, Michelle Tompkins, Tomye, Karin Turner – karinsArt, Orlonda Uffre, Olaitan Valerie, BJ VanBuren, Paula Vaughan, Charles Walker, Xan Blood Walker, Jennifer Inez Ward, Fan Warren, Horace Washington, Lois Williams, Nedra T. Williams, WilParish, Jazmyne Woffard-Jones, TheArthur Wright (SiGiDiArt), Jasmine Young

About the Richmond Art Center:  The Richmond Art Center is the largest visual arts center in the East Bay, delivering exciting arts experiences to people of all ages who reflect the diverse richness of our community. We do this through onsite Studio classes and Exhibitions, and offsite Art in the Community programs.

Richmond Art Center
2540 Barrett Avenue, Richmond, CA 94804
Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10am – 5pm

The Richmond Art Center originated in 1936 when local artist Hazel Salmi, who worked for the WPA, traversed the streets of Richmond with a suitcase packed with art supplies, eager to teach art to anyone interested. Today, everything we do at the Center continues to breathe life into Salmi’s original vision: That within every person lives an artist. Annually we teach thousands of students through classes taught by professional artists; onsite in our six large studios, and off-site via partnerships with community organizations. We also mount 14-16 rotating exhibitions yearly in our four gallery spaces that display the work of youth, emerging and established Bay Area artists. richmondartcenter.org

Image: KaliMa Amilak, Regal Attendance, 2019. Courtesy of the Artist

Press Release: 57th Annual Holiday Arts Festival Returns to the Richmond Art Center

Free, family-friendly arts and crafts festival includes over 55 local artist vendors, community partners and food vendors, holiday café and free art activities for all ages

RICHMOND, CA: The Richmond Art Center invites holiday shoppers to experience a day of custom-made arts and crafts, jewelry, ceramics, textiles, packaged goods, clothing and accessories made by local independent artists and craftspeople. The 57th Annual Holiday Arts Festival is the largest community event and fundraiser for the Richmond Art Center, free to the public, with over 55 local artists and artisan vendors, non-profit community partners and gourmet food vendors participating, Sunday, December 8, 11 AM – 5 PM, at the Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Avenue, Richmond.

Press Release: Countersteer: Custom Motorcycles as Self-Expression

Countersteer Defined:

1. Motorcycling: To initiate a turn by steering opposite to the direction desired.
2. Common: To steer against the tide of norms and expectations.

August 8, 2019: The Richmond Art Center invites visitors to the upcoming exhibition Countersteer: Custom Motorcycles as Self-Expression. Countersteer explores personal expression through the medium of the motorcycle.

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 ArtistRichard-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 AbrightJennie 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.

Press Release: Richmond Art Center Awarded California Arts Council “Arts Education: Extension” Grant

State funds support Richmond Art Center’s Art in the Community arts education programming

[Richmond, CA] – The California Arts Council announced its plans to award $13,500 to the Richmond Art Center as part of its Arts Education: Extension program.

As a segment of the California Arts Council Arts Education grant opportunities, Extension grants support arts education programs for PreK-12 students that operate after school and during the summer, on school sites, in artistic venues, and in community settings. The intention of the program is to offer young people sequential, hands-on training in artistic disciplines, including dance, literary arts, media arts, music, theatre, and visual arts.

The funding from the California Arts Council will support Art in the Community’s after school artist residencies in West Contra Costa County Unified School District (WCCUSD) elementary schools. The 20 week residencies will take place over the course of the 2018-2019 school year, in partnership with the district’s office of expanded learning.

The Richmond Art Center is one of 169 grantees chosen for the Arts Education: Extension program. The award was featured as part of a larger announcementfrom the California Arts Council.

“The Arts Education Extension program capitalizes on the potential to create arts learning opportunities for California’s young people whenever and wherever possible,” said Nashormeh Lindo, California Arts Council Chair. “Projects like the Richmond Art Center’s Art in the Community program allow for the positive impacts of arts engagement to continue undeterred.”

To view a complete listing of all Arts Education Extension grantees, visit http://arts.ca.gov/programs/files/FY1718_ProjectDescriptions_AE-EXT.pdf.

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About the Richmond Art Center: The Richmond Art Center is the largest visual arts center in the East Bay, delivering exciting arts experiences to young and old alike who reflect the diverse richness of our community. The Art Center features hands-on learning, well-equipped studios, Art in the Community programs and contemporary exhibitions in its galleries.

Every year, the Richmond Art Center serves thousands of students through classes and programs taught by professional artists, both onsite at the Art Center and at sites throughout Richmond. The Art Center’s four galleries mount rotating exhibitions that display the works of emerging and established Bay Area artists. Artists such as Richard Diebenkorn, Richard Misrach, Wanxin Zhang, Mildred Howard, Bella Feldman, Hung Liu, William Wiley, June Schwartz, and David Park have been showcased here.

The Richmond Art Center originated in 1936, when local artist Hazel Salmi, who worked for the WPA, traversed the streets of Richmond with a suitcase packed with art supplies, eager to teach art to anyone interested. Today, everything at the Art Center continues to breathe life into Salmi’s original vision: That within every person lives an artist.

About the California Arts Council: The mission of the California Arts Council, a state agency, is to advance California through the arts and creativity. The Council is committed to building public will and resources for the arts; fostering accessible arts initiatives that reflect contributions from all of California’s diverse populations; serving as a thought leader and champion for the arts; and providing effective and relevant programs and services.

Members of the California Arts Council include: Chair Nashormeh Lindo, Vice Chair Larry Baza, Phoebe Beasley, Christopher Coppola, Juan Devis, Kathleen Gallegos, Jaime Galli, Donn K. Harris, Louise McGuinness, Steven Oliver, and Rosalind Wyman. Learn more at www.arts.ca.gov.

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Visit the Richmond Art Center’s website for more information: http://richmondartcenter.org/

Contact for more information:

Julie Sparenberg
Communications Director
julie@richmondartcenter.org
510-620-6772

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Richmond Art Center
2540 Barrett Avenue
Richmond, CA 94804-1600

 

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