What: Rebirth Through Time:
Celebrating 10 years of Excellence
When: March 1 – April 28, 2013
Jewelry
Trunk show by Corinthia Peoples: Saturday, March 30th 1-7pm
2nd
Opening Reception: Friday, April 5th, 6-9pm
Artist
Talk: First
Friday, April 5th 7-8p
Where: Joyce Gordon Gallery
406 14th St (12th St. Bart Exit)
Oakland, Ca. 94612
Participating Artists: Zena Allen, Latisha Baker, Christine Balza, Lorraine Bonner, Dimeng Brehmer, Samantha Chundur, Linda Fong, April Hankins, Penny Harncharnvej, Kristen Jensen, Vanessa Marsh, Susan Matthews, Barbara McIntyre, Corinthia Peoples, Keli Walker and Flo Oy Wong
For more information please contact:
Gallery
Curator: Eric Murphy - eric.aioakland@gmail.com
Gallery: 510.465.8928
Gallery: 510.465.8928
Joyce Gordon Gallery
presents “Rebirth Through Time”, an exhibition of sixteen women artists
in honor of Women’s History Month of March into April and the inaugural
celebration of Joyce Gordon Gallery’s 10th anniversary in downtown
Oakland.
In Europe during 1911, March 8th was celebrated
as International Women’s Month with the focus on women’s rights in society and
continues to be recognized to this very day.
In the US, this celebration much like Black History Month began to be
observed for a full week and in 1987, Congress extended this fete into the
entire month of March.
Today by inevitable response, we also honor women artists
through exhibitions and other public programs without much discussion about the
history and evolution of women artists, gallerists, critics and collectors
throughout time. In Eleanor Tufts’ 1974 book, Our Hidden Heritage: Five Centuries
of Women Artists, Tuft document the lives of 22 women artists from the 16th to the 20th
century and examined how each of them became involved in art. These female
artists include, Artemisha
Gentileschi, 19th Century sculptor Edmonia Lewis and 17th
Century still life painter, Rachel Ruysch whose paintings was believed at one point
to sell higher than the works of fellow Dutch painter, Rembrandt. Other studies
suggest that parity in the success of male and female artists in history is
subject to initial conditions and favorable environments. This nature vs.
nurture idea would then support the success of such women artists as the
daughters of Charles Peale, students of Bologna University and the painters of
Mithila in India; a predominant group of women artists that became
Internationally famous and financially more successful than some of their
husbands, enabling them to be more than corporeal assets.
In our exhibition,
Rebirth Through Time, artist, Zena Allen’s Watercolor and Ink painting,
“Baptism” adapts the style of the Indian Mithila painters and various folk art
while merging another sub-Saharan culture in Ethiopia, ironically these two
cultures are also comparable in the culinary arts. Other culturally conscious
artworks, includes Keli Walker’s “The Albino” hinting towards the modern
massacre of Albino’s in Africa today, Penny Harncharnvej’s “Thais to
America” series, (feat. Thailand’s King, Bhumibol Adulyadej, born in Cambridge,
Massachussettes) challenges
class systems and Asian stereotypes as referenced in a 2010 Art in America
article and Flo Oy Wong’s “Oakland Chinatown” is a retrospective series
of drawings in which her family restaurant demonstrates a period of working
class Chinese Americans during her childhood in direct contrast to Hollywood’s
portrayal of popular Chinese culture at that time. Other artists like Linda
Fong, April Hankins, Barbara McIntyre and Samantha Chundur’s
abstract paintings focus more on the intrinsic nature of art. The innovative
process of Vanessa Marsh’s Constellations series of photograms, and verisimilitude of life like figures
in her c-prints is a nod to Anna Atkins and the role of women photographers of
the 19th and 20th Century.
Regardless of medium
or subject, this group of sixteen women artists is salient to the role of women
in modern art. So the question remains, what is the role of women gallerists, curators, critics and
collectors? If I may be more colloquial
than factual to express personal observation, women in the field of art seem to
show a greater dominance in today’s art market. It’s not just a cheer to the
muses, it is a venerated moment to a more cognitive species. In regards to
collecting art, let’s not forget Oakland’s own, Gertrude Stein (February 3,
1874 – July 27, 1946), who I am certain would say to women artists today,
“There she is.” Historically women gallerists are no modern sensation either
when considering the role of Agnes Dürer and Rembrandt's first wife, Saskia van Uylenburgh, who managed
their husband’s art practices.
So how does a
commercial gallery survive for 10 years, which may suggest that it must remain
innovative and reinvent itself through time to stay fresh and relevant. With
that said, we toast to 10 years of Oakland’s muse and woman gallerist, Joyce
Gordon.
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