detroit expat artists at detroit artists market
Homecoming
The Detroit Artists Market celebrates its 90th birthday with Detroit Expat Artists: Homecoming—a celebratory reunion of artists nurtured by Detroit. Curated by Stephanie James and Elizabeth Youngblood, the exhibition showcases a multigenerational group of artists working in a variety of media and genres over the last fifty years.
The viewer certainly does receive the brunt of Bandsuch’s explosive creation. This abstraction’s energy comes from layers of intensely colored paint and multitudes of tiny marks. The discernible composition is well structured with darker pigments toward the bottom migrating to an energetic pitch in the middle then erupting at the horizon line puncturing the light pink background. At 67” x 85”, this picture impossible to ignore.
McArthur Binion is the master of patterning but does it so the picture only quietly vibrates. Black under softly devised interlocking lines create such fantastic depth, it seems to be viewing fabric under a microscope.
The dynamics of blending a painting with sculpture makes the objects appear to have fallen directly out of the picture onto the floor and, in Wizard of Oz fashion, from greyscale into color. That the painting is on paper renders it no less important and can easily stand alone through technical execution and its unsettling subject matter.
Christopher Batten’s soft, easy portrait becomes highly dramatic through use of vivid color in describing the landscape of this man’s face. The inclusion of the subject’s accoutrement allows the viewer insight into who this person is and how he likes to spend his time.
DAM’s Featured Artist Wall, curated for years by and in honor of the late Jack O. Summers, is continued by Melissa Jones currently presenting works by David McGuffie. An image almost out of a nursery rhyme is imaginatively defined using stippling and variation in line.
Once a Detroiter, always a Detroiter. For as difficult as it can be to thrive in this city, we do it by supporting each other through thick and thin. There’s an undeclared respect and pride for those who stick it out. We face anything and everything together. It gets in your blood so deep that even if you geographically leave, the guts and grind stay with you. It will always be home.
Expat participating artists: Matthew Bandsuch, Christopher Batten, McArthur Binion, Melvin Clark, Brenda Goodman, Garry Grant, Artis Lane, Al Loving, Joshua Newth, Yolanda Sharpe, Eric Smith, Nick Sousanis, and Michael Kelly Williams.
On view through October 22nd at Detroit Artists Market 4719 Woodward Ave Detroit
*images are mine
direct quote from gallery materials
SHOWS OPEN THIS WEEKEND
Some beautiful images. Love that work by David McGuffie. Couldn’t work out what it was at first.