at The Terrarium Gallery at Drawing Rooms and The Alcove Gallery at Drawing Rooms
926 Newark Ave. T#101, Jersey City, NJ
Gallery Hours: Thurs/Fri 4-7p; Sat/Sun 2-6p. Free Parking Lot. Enter on Newark Ave.
Artist Reception: 2/24/23, 5-8p
926 Newark Ave. T#101, Jersey City, NJ
Gallery Hours: Thurs/Fri 4-7p; Sat/Sun 2-6p. Free Parking Lot. Enter on Newark Ave.
Artist Reception: 2/24/23, 5-8p
Artist Talks Weekend for
"Tall Tales" and Other Truths,
Saturday 3/18/23, 3-5p and Sunday 3/19/23, 3-5p.
SATURDAY 3/18: Join us to hear artists Willie Cole, Aliza Augustine and Michael Pribich speak about their work.
SUNDAY3/19: Join us to hear artists Adrienne Wheeler and Noelle Lorraine Williams speak about their work. Author Rick Geffken who wrote "Stories of Slavery in New Jersey" will also speak about his book.
A Q&A session for all will follow both sessions. Event is Free. Wine will be served.
Please RSVP HERE.
"Tall Tales" and Other Truths,
Saturday 3/18/23, 3-5p and Sunday 3/19/23, 3-5p.
SATURDAY 3/18: Join us to hear artists Willie Cole, Aliza Augustine and Michael Pribich speak about their work.
SUNDAY3/19: Join us to hear artists Adrienne Wheeler and Noelle Lorraine Williams speak about their work. Author Rick Geffken who wrote "Stories of Slavery in New Jersey" will also speak about his book.
A Q&A session for all will follow both sessions. Event is Free. Wine will be served.
Please RSVP HERE.
Noelle Lorraine Williams
Drawing Rooms Presents
“Tall Tales” and Other Truths, 2/16/23 - 4/22/23, in our newly remodeled exhibition space at the Topps Building in Journal Square. This exhibition features artists whose work draws deeply from personal ancestry and cultural history.
ARTISTS INCLUDE:
Adrienne Wheeler: whose family history spans 200 years in Newark, NJ, creates works which blur the lines between spirituality, ancestry, oral history, and social engagement.
Aliza Augustine: an Israeli born photographer confronting the Holocaust, Feminism, Genocide, Gender, and Race.
Francis Crisafio: presents selections from 'Together', a series of photographs from his father Tony's barbershop in the Lawrenceville neighborhood of Pittsburgh where his family, deeply rooted in Italian culture, settled. Tony cut hair for almost 80 years and his shop became a place of coming together where people of all cultures, ages, and classes interacted.
Michael Pribich: an artist of Mexican descent whose work explores labor as cultural production. He is interested in the artist’s role in advancing ideas that lead to continual growth and change.
Noelle Lorraine Williams: a Newark artist showing works from her ongoing project ‘Monumental Spirit: Re-imagined Sites of 19th Century’ depicting Newark’s Black Abolitionist Historical Monuments re-contextualized.
Willie Cole: the critically acclaimed NJ-based artist has been altering perceptions of household objects since the 1990s. He ingeniously transforms steam irons, ironing boards, hairdryers, and high-heeled shoes into powerful sculptures, installations, and works on paper. Mining his own African-American heritage, Cole creates work that celebrates African art and culture and confronts viewers with the painful history of slavery in America.
Artists compiled Reading List to give viewers a deeper understanding of the subject matter of their work in the exhibition.
From Anne Trauben's Curatorial Statement
This show is personal.
Visual artists speak through images, sounds and experiences which often tell stories, either directly or indirectly. Stories, or narratives, aka Narrative Art, include made-up stories based in fantasy or imagined realities, stories composed of disparate elements used to create an inferred narrative, or stories which speak truth, either personally for the artist, or for people and/or issues the artist feels strongly resonates with them. Some artists choose to make this truth-work because they feel compelled to understand the issue better for themselves. Others do so to bring the issue out of the darkness and into the light, in the hope of helping to create awareness.
The artists in this show tell stories which personally relate to their ancestry, culture and community. These stories may involve secrets long kept unknown or unseen by others, whether nefarious or not, or things many people of one culture may not know about another person’s culture, or things people may not want others to know. The artists are engaging within the realm of Identity Art.
The stories of identity these artists tell run the gamut from exploration of one’s cultural identity, to family joy, to painful and/or disturbing truths to say the least, which, at one point or another, we all may have been told, or have heard others say are exaggerated or not based in truth. This, compounded by the fact that we are bombarded with “false news” and “alternative realities”, makes the show timely and important. All the stories these artists are telling us are true, and their stories need to be shared and heard.
Presenting these stories brings truth to light, but can be complicated because they may create a sense of vulnerability for both the artist and the viewer.
Read the full Curatorial Statement here.
More images from the show below.
“Tall Tales” and Other Truths, 2/16/23 - 4/22/23, in our newly remodeled exhibition space at the Topps Building in Journal Square. This exhibition features artists whose work draws deeply from personal ancestry and cultural history.
ARTISTS INCLUDE:
Adrienne Wheeler: whose family history spans 200 years in Newark, NJ, creates works which blur the lines between spirituality, ancestry, oral history, and social engagement.
Aliza Augustine: an Israeli born photographer confronting the Holocaust, Feminism, Genocide, Gender, and Race.
Francis Crisafio: presents selections from 'Together', a series of photographs from his father Tony's barbershop in the Lawrenceville neighborhood of Pittsburgh where his family, deeply rooted in Italian culture, settled. Tony cut hair for almost 80 years and his shop became a place of coming together where people of all cultures, ages, and classes interacted.
Michael Pribich: an artist of Mexican descent whose work explores labor as cultural production. He is interested in the artist’s role in advancing ideas that lead to continual growth and change.
Noelle Lorraine Williams: a Newark artist showing works from her ongoing project ‘Monumental Spirit: Re-imagined Sites of 19th Century’ depicting Newark’s Black Abolitionist Historical Monuments re-contextualized.
Willie Cole: the critically acclaimed NJ-based artist has been altering perceptions of household objects since the 1990s. He ingeniously transforms steam irons, ironing boards, hairdryers, and high-heeled shoes into powerful sculptures, installations, and works on paper. Mining his own African-American heritage, Cole creates work that celebrates African art and culture and confronts viewers with the painful history of slavery in America.
Artists compiled Reading List to give viewers a deeper understanding of the subject matter of their work in the exhibition.
From Anne Trauben's Curatorial Statement
This show is personal.
Visual artists speak through images, sounds and experiences which often tell stories, either directly or indirectly. Stories, or narratives, aka Narrative Art, include made-up stories based in fantasy or imagined realities, stories composed of disparate elements used to create an inferred narrative, or stories which speak truth, either personally for the artist, or for people and/or issues the artist feels strongly resonates with them. Some artists choose to make this truth-work because they feel compelled to understand the issue better for themselves. Others do so to bring the issue out of the darkness and into the light, in the hope of helping to create awareness.
The artists in this show tell stories which personally relate to their ancestry, culture and community. These stories may involve secrets long kept unknown or unseen by others, whether nefarious or not, or things many people of one culture may not know about another person’s culture, or things people may not want others to know. The artists are engaging within the realm of Identity Art.
The stories of identity these artists tell run the gamut from exploration of one’s cultural identity, to family joy, to painful and/or disturbing truths to say the least, which, at one point or another, we all may have been told, or have heard others say are exaggerated or not based in truth. This, compounded by the fact that we are bombarded with “false news” and “alternative realities”, makes the show timely and important. All the stories these artists are telling us are true, and their stories need to be shared and heard.
Presenting these stories brings truth to light, but can be complicated because they may create a sense of vulnerability for both the artist and the viewer.
Read the full Curatorial Statement here.
More images from the show below.
Willie Cole, Domestic Shield XV, 2020, Photo by Joerg Lohse
Aliza Augustine
Adrienne Wheeler
Michael Pribich
Francis Crisafio
