Harlem Perspectives:
an exhibition celebrating the local talent of Harlem and uptown New York
(Interview with Elizabeth Colomba)
(Interview with Richard Scarry)
Following a hugely successful inaugural show at the newly opened Galley 8 on Frederick Douglass Boulevard, the FACTION team return to Harlem with an eclectic mix of local artists, who live and work above Manhattan’s 110th Street.
Artists include Jamaica-born Renee Cox, Colombian-American artist Lina Puerta, French painter Elizabeth Colomba, Dominican Republic-born Pepe Coronado, Chilean American artist Virginia Inez, Moscow born Leeza Meksin, Guatemalan photographer Jaime Permuth, African American artist Stan Squirewell, and New York born Elaine Reichek and David Shrobe.
Whilst broad in selection of mediums and topics, the theme of the show is predominantly geographical and aims to celebrate the creative talent in the vicinity of the gallery, which is located on Frederick Douglass Boulevard (cross street 139th Street), on Harlem’s historic Striver’s Row.
The work of Renee Cox, Puerta, Meksin and Colomba explore the human body in disparate ways. Cox uses her own body, both nude and clothed to celebrate black womanhood and criticize a society she often views as racist and sexist, and with works such as ‘The Signing’ seeks to re-contextualize American History, whilst Lina Puerta uses a variety of materials to blend the human world with the natural world and examine the relationship between the body and nature. Elizabeth Colomba is a figurative painter who adapts the technical approach and themes of traditional Western portraiture in order to interrupt stereotypical representation of the black body and Leeza Meksin’s works, highlight parallels between conventions of painting, architecture and our bodies.
Harlem Perspectives presents a wealth of artistic mediums. Photography is represented by Virginia Ines Vergara, whose photographic work embodies meditations on light, perception and proximity and Jaime Permuth, who explores human realities in frank portraits. Pepe Coronado uses the medium of print to signify the entangled relationship between the US and his birthplace of the Dominican Republic and Elaine Reichek uses embroidered samplers to address issues of gender, race, culture and power.
David Shrobe and Stan Squirewell work across mixed media, and where David Shrobe’s work uses recycled materials to explore historical narratives and re-framing everyday matter, Stan Squirewell’s incorporates mythology, sacred geometry and science to tackle themes of race and memory.
