Shift Exhibit
Alex Perez (AJE) | |
| Artist Bio: Alexis Javier (AJE) is a creative conduit acting as an artist, experiential designer, consultant, curator, musician, explorer, and social activist. He has been a consistent presence in the growth of the ‘arts & culture’ sector of Savannah for the past 15+ years. | Artist Statement: Achromatic, meaning color "without color," synonymous with the greyscale, a neutral palette between black and white, is a metaphor for the figure's spiritual essence and energetic being. The complexities and "layers" of one's humanness is represented by these varying shapes and tones of the skin, unveiling one's depth in their wholeness, while juxtaposed by man-made accessories in technicolor that adorn the figure, showing participation in the external world while remaining true to one's humanity. The gaze pierces through the vulnerability of revealing the multiplicity of self, with a certain strength and confidence, rendering the figure self-aware. |
Achromatic In Technicolor Mixed media on canvas 36" x 48" 2018 - 2021 NFS | |
Calvin Woodum | |
| Artist Bio: Calvin Woodum is originally from Wrightsville, GA. He is currently living and working in Savannah, GA as an abstract painter. He is a former fashion major at The Savannah College of Art & Design. But he turned his attention to abstract art exploring the “pour and drip” method and the “layer upon layer” technique. Woodum is also a local concierge who loves sharing Savannah with the rest of the world. He recently won first prize in a Low Country Artist Contest. His art is on the cover of Julia Coates’s book: Invisible Diversity Teaching Every Student. And since 2014, he has been a Board Member of Friends of African American Arts (FAAA) at Telfair Museums, he is now proud to announce, he is the new FAAA Chair. | Artist Statement: Because of the three most very recent issues plaguing our country, anyone with some semblance of goodness in their heart has had to step back and reassess their lives regarding right and wrong. During the last Presidential Administration, political corruption was rampant; lying and inept leadership, a grossly mishandled pandemic, social unrest because of police brutality, we were all forced to make unexpected life altering decisions in a split second. While we were forced to quarantine for over a month, I had a very involved conversation with myself. I had a lot of time to self-reflect on how to move forward with my friends who were on the opposite political spectrum. I have always thought, politics are personal. They take away your rights. With regards to close friends, you have to choose them carefully and politically. Within this composition, I see an almost exact abstract figure of me, its reflection and another more animated character of me talking amongst themselves. During quarantine, while leaning back against the wall, one leg on the floor, one propped up on the bed, starring at my four walls, I literally had that long conversation with myself regarding this uncertain future we’re forced to be in. The figures are in such a relaxed state, it’s almost hypnotic. As this was my actual reality, it was also ironic because I felt as though I was in a dream. As real as my environment was, it didn’t seem real at all. During quarantine, I felt this state for quite sometime. Early on during quarantine, not knowing when I would be allowed to go back to work and how I would meet my financial obligations, I was truly in a state of shock and hopelessness. In spite of what was happening all around me, I did find some solace in my solitude. As artist, from time to time, we appreciate that isolation. |
A Conversation With Myself Acrylic on Canvas 24" X 24" 2020 $600 | |
Cameron Frost | |
| Artist Bio: Cameron Worthington Frost is a ceramicist and sculptor who lives and works in Savannah, Georgia. Frost holds a Bachelor of Fine Art (BFA) in Visual Art from Georgia Southern University (GSU) with a focus in ceramics. He began his artistic career at a foundry as a bronze-caster, and in recent years has worked intensively with ceramics and stained glass. Frost currently works for the City of Savannah as a Visual Arts Specialist running the ceramics department for Cultural Resources. | Artist Statement: My work explores the act of creation and the repetition of forms. My sculptures are made of recycled ceramic clay and is finished with an underglaze. I prefer to leave interpretation in the hands of the viewer. |
Amalgamation Ceramic 2ft x 2ft x 1.5ft 2021 NFS | |
Jon Witzky | |
| Artist Bio: Jon Witzky is the Exhibitions Director at Sulfur Studios and an Artist/Educator living and working in Savannah, GA. Jon's work explores unknown unknowns - that which sits between the imagined and the real. | Artist Statement: Witzky's works are based on imagined realities and social constructs. In his work, Witzky explores exotic and romantic cultural stereotypes. Midnight Cowboys is based on found imagery from the television show Gunsmoke, the cowboys in the painting express both a threatening presence and a mysterious tenderness, questioning preconceived notions of masculinity. |
Midnight Cowboys Oil on Canvas 80x62” 2020 $2000 | |
Lois Harvey | |
| Artist Bio: Lois Harvey is an artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. A graduate of Georgia Southern University, Harvey has been an artist in residence at the Hambidge Center for Arts, worked for The Clay Studio in Philadelphia and Apparatus Studio in New York. Her studio practice is located in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, her recent work comes from her surroundings and experiences in New York during the pandemic. | Artist Statement: This work is about what we leave behind and grief. What holes are left after someone is no longer there - how we collect and imbue objects with memory of people. A vase that was a point of pride, the striped shadows of window blinds against the deepness of velvet dark night. The can't-sit-still orange of joy that still remains like the brightest lights playing against your eyelids when you shut your eyes. |
burn away scatter behind eyes Acrylic paint 8" x 10" 2021 NFS | |
it's in the china cabinet, there, look down Acrylic 8" x 10" 2021 NFS | |
3am floating stripes Ceramic 10.5" x 9" x 5" 2020 NFS | |
Margie Marie | |
| Artist Bio: Margie Marie is a local Savannah artist. She is a native of Savannah, Georgia where she attended Savannah Arts Academy. She received her B.F.A (Bachelor of Fine Arts) from Savannah State University in the fall of 2018. Margie is a member of Telfair’s “Friends of African American Arts”, orchestrated through the local Telfair Museum. She has participated in the annual FAAA Fall Exhibition in both 2019 and 2020. She has also had the privilege of showing at Sulfur Studios and being a featured artist for the Savannah Art Walk. Margie is currently preparing to pursue her MFA. Her experiences in various mediums allows her to be flexible as an artist. One of her unique ways of approaching her work is through the lens of her subject matter. She captures and illustrates the essence of the individual through portrait and figure paintings. She works mainly in acrylics and ink. | Artist Statement: My work is intentional in challenging viewers to delve into conversations, both internally with themselves and in social settings. My art covers the ideas of life experiences, invoking self awareness & spiritual growth with respect to many of the ways of the African Ancestors. All ideas that are universal. My use of personal iconography is what gives my work its own unique stamp. My signature hummingbird, symbolizing “one's resilience”, is just one of the many symbols used throughout my art. I enjoy conveying certain emotions through the subject matter and the overall tonality of each piece. Every detail, no matter how unimportant it may seem, has meaning and depth. This is how I view people. Every person has a story. We are all complex individuals whose lives are influenced by our experiences as well as our ancestors' experiences. By sharing the truth, people can identify with each other. Unity can only take place after the individual has taken the means of facing their own truth and working with each other to grow. |
You Can't Run Away From Yourself Acrylic On Canvas 9’ x 4’ 11” 2020-2021 In the collection of Melanie Stiassny and Jackie Black | |
...I’ll be standing to your doorstep saying “Im here” Acrylic on canvas 8’ 4.5” x 5’ 2021 NFS | |
Nikki Zuaro | |
| Artist Bio: Nikki Zuaro (b. 1994, United States), born and raised on Long Island, New York, is a conceptual artist who is presently living and working in Savannah, Georgia. She received an MFA in painting from Savannah College of Art and Design in 2021 and a BA in studio art from Hartwick College, in Oneonta, NY in 2016. Her work is centered around performative action based on labor and futility in which repetition is a common theme. Zuaro has shown her work in several exhibitions up and down the east coast of the United States. She recently held a solo exhibition for her thesis in Savannah, Georgia called (f)Utility where she displayed her conceptual artwork accompanied by a virtual artist talk. | Artist Statement: |
thank you. have a nice day. I Sharpie, oil stick, and China marker on paper 18” x 24” 2021 $250.00 USD | |
thank you. have a nice day. II Sharpie, oil stick, and China marker on paper 18” x 24” 2021 $250.00 USD | |
thank you. have a nice day. III Sharpie, oil stick, and China marker on paper 18” x 24” 2021 $250.00 USD | |
Preserved Customer Service Plastic “THANK YOU” bags in a plexi box 16”x10”x10” 2021 $300.00 | |
A Tractor Getting Stuck In The Sand As I Watch Video Shot on a AKASO EK7000 camera 2:35 minutes 2020 $50.00 per digital copy | |
Sweeping Video shot on a AKASO EK7000 camera 14:40 minutes 2020 $50.00 per digital copy | |
Sharon Norwood | |
| Artist Bio: Sharon Norwood is a Canadian interdisciplinary conceptual artist whose work spans several media to include painting and ceramics. Born in Jamaica, Sharon grew up in Toronto Ontario. Norwood received her BFA at the University of South Florida and an MFA from Florida State University in 2018. Her practice often explores issues of identity, speaking about race, gender and our perceptions of beauty. In her work the curly line takes on special importance as a metaphor for the black body and a decorative, ornate mark that speaks to drawing. Norwood’s exhibition record includes solo exhibitions, group collaborations, and site-specific installations. In 2019 Norwood became a Joan Mitchell foundation Grant Nominee. Sharon maintains her studio in Savannah Georgia. | Artist Statement: My research explores issues of identity where I use the line as a way to speak about our relationships to postcolonial structures, systems of power, and their implication to collective suppositions about difference. I aim to create works that disrupts the white gaze and other passive notions of viewing "the other", and to question standing narratives and systems that shape how identities are understood. It is about looking, and deeper critical thinking. Content for the work comes out of a need to unpack my own awakening to the racially charged social, political, and cultural histories of black peoples. I am interested in those things that shape our understanding of "black culture". Using the curly line paired with historical objects becomes a way to speak to issues of race, gender, beauty, class and indeed labor. In my work the curly line becomes the black body, and at other times it lives within the decorative, ornate space that connects us back to the formal language of drawing, and mark making. I enjoy this shift between hair and line, between political and nonpolitical, how at one moment the work is read as hair while at other times it is simply a beautiful gesture. The line serves many purposes. It is both drawing as well as signifier for the black body, allowing for complex, layered conversations that address ideas of displacement, otherness and issues related to misrepresentations in popular culture. |
Hush Now Ceramic 24” x 24” 2019NFS | |
| Artist Bio: Sharonna Ray is a mixed-media artist based in Savannah, Georgia. She is an honor graduate of Savannah State University’s Fine Arts program. She uses a range of mixed media materials such as acrylic, clay and fibers to depict desserts in her paintings. Sharonna is an Elementary Art Educator in the Savannah Chatham County Public School System. She also serves as a Board Member of the Telfair Museums’ Friends of African American Arts. Sharonna is also the owner of Ronnie’s World of Art, her online art boutique which sells matching merchandise such as throw pillows, notebooks and cellphone cases with imagery of her artwork on it. | Artist Statement: Sharonna will be presenting her Cotton Candy Collection for Shift. This collection is inspired by her journey of navigating grief. During her last semester of college, her older brother Shanon was diagnosed with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis). It is a terminal disease that causes muscle degeneration. After graduating from Savannah State in December 2018, Sharonna could feel a huge shift happening in her life. While she was transitioning from undergraduate life to adulthood, her brother’s health was declining rapidly. Sweets gave her sense of solace during what was a very difficult season in her life. As a result, it led to the depictions of desserts in her artwork. During last summer in July 2020, Sharonna’s older brother Shanon passed away at age 37. After learning of her brother’s passing, she immediately craved cotton candy for comfort which inspired her Cotton Collection. |
Cotton Candy Skies No. 4 Acrylic, fibers and mixed media on canvas 48” x 48” 2021 $825 | |
Cotton Candy Skies No. 5 Acrylic, fibers and mixed media on canvas 48” x 60” 2021 $975 | |
Tyriq Maxwell | |
| Artist Bio: Tyriq Maxwell is an artist from Savannah, Georgia. In his paintings, Maxwell manipulates abstract patterns and compositions observed from geometric architecture to create paintings that explore how form and colors influence one another in exciting ways. He uses real architecture as a catalyst, then abstracts unique perspectives into their basic elements. | Artist Statement: In this series of works, Maxwell aims to depict his views on patriotism through painting and sculpture. Each piece focuses on themes of how time can make us form different opinions on ideals we believed to be true through color and form. |
Flag Acrylic on Canvas 2020 $550 | |
Past Plaster Mold painted with Acrylic 2017 $100 | |
Present Plaster Mold painted with Acrylic 2017 $100 |