Six (6) Questions: Global and Local Artists’ Perspectives is an Interview and Conversation Series by Atim Annette Oton, curator of Calabar Gallery in Harlem, New York with Artists, Art Curators, Thinkers, Collectors and Gallerists.
D. DEL REVERDA-JENNINGS
Indiana-based Artist
Work Above: For Sisters Who Carry The Burden Of Other Sisters - Sway Series, 2021, Mixed Media Sculptural Relief with Non Ferrous Metal, Precious Metal Leaf, Paint, Wood, Clay, Hand-Wrought and Manipulated Metal Embellished with Fiber, Carving and Enamel, 32"hx 42"wx4.5"d The Goddess centered "SWAY Series" explores today's women of color and their connection to earth, spirit and relatedness to the ephemeral timeframe of our lives in which to uplift and empower ourselves in this world before our journey through to the next. This recent ongoing series investigates belonging, identity and colorism as experienced by contemporary women of color. It is symbolism, transformation and the healer self...with themes rooted in social issues, othering and memory.
1. What inspires you? And what continues to inspire you after these many years?
Vibrancy, pattern, texture, form, a complex organic aesthetic and visual narrative, environment, music, culture, social issues/climate, sensuality, emotion, power, pain, memory be it history related, my own or through intercession from the ancestors inspires me, as does the process, labor and resulting birthed artpieces which evolve and become like my progeny, as well as the vivid dreams that regularly inhabit and bolster my imagination.
2. How did you start making art? And why do you make art?
I have always made art in some manner, as a young child I would collect small colorful bits and shiny or rusty scraps of metal from the streets as I often walked with my grandparents who eventually realized that all of the pieces of carefully assembled detritus appearing in small piles around the house came from the pockets of their small, odd charge. I am driven to create. As a self-taught artist whose journey has aligned along an intuitive path, my ability to “make” things comes from an insatiable will and a powerful passion. Basically much of what I know and apply in my visual practice has been learned on my own time and refined through first-person experience; figuring things out, trial and error, experimentation and the desire to master this knowledge and moving on to the next. I am constantly learning, exploring to enhance my craft. I create work in a number of genres and also produce non-representational abstract expressionist pieces and sculptural abstractionist works. I now have extensive experience in two and three-dimensional Fine Art and decades of familiarity and participation with Arts & Culture in the Midwest and beyond. Great satisfaction is derived from the sculptural pieces that are my signature, which center upon the tenets of the lives and mythology of contemporary women of color, my lineage, and our relationship to ancestral and spiritual entities and the Divine Feminine. My artworks have been exhibited and are held in several private and corporate collections internationally.
SANUSI OLATUNJI,
South African-based Nigerian Artist
Upcoming Exhibitions
May to June, 2021
Solo Show: Margaret Vendryes
June to July, 2021
Black Artists in their Own Realm
July to August 2021
Purpose and Intention: Pamella Allen and Donchellee Fulwood
September to October, 2021
Group Show: Zambian Artists
November to November, 2021
Solo Show: TBD
December to January, 2022
Emerging and Established Ghanaian artists
January to February, 2022
MARIE-CLAIRE MESSOUMA
Paris-based Artist
Past Exhibitions
2018
(TRANSFORMATION): A SOLO EXHIBITION BY FAUSTIN ADENIRAN
2018
Sisters, Mothers and Queens by Jimmy James Greene, A Solo Exhibition
2018
Complexities, Portraiture and Abstract Dialogues in Contemporary Nigerian Emerging and Established Artists, curated by Atim Annette Oton and Burns Effiom
2018
MECCA ALIM, A Solo Exhibition
2018
ROBERT DANIELS: SELECT WORKS
2017
Conversations in Patterns, Textiles, Figures and Portraits: JAMILLA OKUBO AND IFY CHIEJINA
2017
Contemporary African Spirituality
2017
ELEMENTIKS: A Symbolic Interpretation of the Four Elements – Water, Air, Fire and Earth by Mboolomi
2016
RED FORBIDDEN SPACE: New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Tetuan, Morocco by TAEESHA MUHAMMAD
2016
DRIPPING INK: THE NIGERIAN CHAPTER BY MARCIA WILSON, PHOTOGRAPHER
2016
BISA WENDY WASHINGTON and WILHELMINA OBATOLA GRANT: Narrating the Feminine with Assemblages and Found Objects
2016
AfroGentrification of Picasso
Six (6) Questions: Global and Local Artists’ Perspectives is an Interview and Conversation Series by Atim Annette Oton, curator of Calabar Gallery in Harlem, New York with Artists, Art Curators, Thinkers, Colletors and Gallerists.