May 2013

Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture in Charlotte, NC, Offers Three New Exhibitions

The Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture in Charlotte, NC, is presenting three new exhibits including: Jonathan Green: Spiritual Journey of Life; Etched in the Eyes: The Spirit of a People Called Gullah Geechee, featuring works by David Herman, Jr.; and I Got Freedom Up Over My Head: Portraits by Julie Moos, Photographs from the Bank of America Collection. All three exhibits will be on view through June 15, 2013.

These exhibitions each celebrate characteristics unique to the Southern United States, including the Gullah Geechee Culture and the southern Baptist church.

“We’re excited to display the extraordinary work of these three living artists,” said Gantt Center President and CEO David Taylor. “Though their artistic expressions may differ, they each preserve and celebrate Southern culture.”

Painter Jonathan Green, creator of A Spiritual Journey of Life, has works included in the John and Vivian Hewitt Collection of African-American Art, which is a part of the Gantt Center’s permanent collection that was donated by Bank of America. David Herman Jr., creator of Etched in the Eyes has partnered with the Gantt Center in the past. He is the co-founder and creative director of Preservation LINK, Inc., an education agency that works to educate youth through media arts and technology. The Gantt Center and Preservation LINK, Inc. partnered to provide Visual Literacy Workshop curriculum to 4th grade classes at Bruns Academy and University Park Creative Arts Elementary School. Photographer Julie Moos, who created I Got Freedom Up Over My Head: Portraits by Julie Moos, Photographs from the Bank of America Collection, will show the bank’s collection of her series in its entirety for the first time. Moos’s approach to photography seeks to explore the worlds of opposites.

“The Harvey B. Gantt Center continues to provide unique and insightful exhibits that enrich the cultural understanding of its visitors,” said Charles Bowman, North Carolina and Charlotte market president, Bank of America. “We’re excited to provide Julie Moos’s photography from the Bank of America Art in Our Communities program to add a distinctive perspective of the Southern experience.”

In his art, Green draws upon his own intimate personal experiences, steeped in the traditions of family, community and life in the southern United States. Each of his paintings is a testament to the motivating power of place. This show is a retrospective of his vivid, colorful work. Through much of his career, Green has shared familiar images of his ancestral home and the Gullah culture. Each painting has served as a testament to the motivating power of place as he draws upon his own intimate personal experiences, steeped in the traditions of family; community; and life in the southern United States.

Celebrated for his vibrant depictions of rural life along the South Carolina coast, this retrospective confirms that Green’s work offers far more. Rarely seen images from his early years include abstracts and paintings that allude to cubism as Green explored different styles. Once settled, Green employed his mastery of color and skillful use of the human figure to open the Gullah culture to the world.

There are multihued blankets hanging on a clothesline with a hint of a woman in a wide red skirt peeking through; turn and find men fishing from a canoe. Look closely and you will find a painting that is more than a woman-with-child in a canoe, it is Green’s mother, Ruth, pregnant with the artist. Turn again and we find deep introspection.

Throughout this exhibition, Green reveals the universal path that we each travel as we seek to find our place and purpose. Ultimately, we walk away with a deep sense of community, believing that the challenges of love, work and belonging can be met.

Green was born and raised in the Low Country of South Carolina. He is an international professional artist who graduated from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1982. Green is considered by many art critics and reviewers to be one of our nation’s most outstanding African-American artists and a highly recognized visual master for capturing Southern culture and traditions. His high level of social interest and cultural commitments have brought him international recognition, along with his numerous exhibitions and travel throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, the West Indies, Switzerland, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Japan.

While his work has ranged in styles, his best known approach to painting may be termed “narrative realism.” It is through his narrative art style that Green captures and records his life experiences and the rich cultural heritage of the Gullah community in which he was raised. It is Green’s mastery of color and skillful use of the human figure, which allows him to preserve and share with the viewer a deep sense of community, and how the challenges of love, work and belonging are met.

As a result of his tremendous and prolific talent, Green’s work has been embraced by collectors and critics throughout the world. His paintings can be found in major museum and cultural collections in California, Florida, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Vermont, Japan, Germany, Brussels, and Sierra Leone. Since 1982 Jonathan Green has received numerous honors and awards for art, social, civic, and cultural contributions. He has received Honorary Doctor of Art Degrees from the University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC and the Coastal Carolina University in Conway, SC for his capturing and recording Southern culture and history.

Some of the numerous awards he has received include the Elizabeth O’Neill Verner Award for Life Time Achievement, Columbia, SC, 2010; Key of Life Award - NAACP Image Awards, Los Angeles, CA, 2009; Century of Achievement in Art Award, The Museum of Americas, Arlington, VA, 2003; Order of the Palmetto Civilian Award, Columbia, SC, 2002, and The History Makers Award in Fine Arts, The History Makers National Archives, Chicago, IL 2001.

This exhibit is proudly sponsored by Belk, Inc. Burton’s Lady, which is featured in this exhibit, is courtesy of the Collection of Eileen P. Gebrian and Timothy J. Barberich.

David Herman, Jr. has roots deeply embedded in the soil of South Carolina. He attended Florida A&M University and earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Print Management. He earned a Master of Arts Degree in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas.

Etched in the Eyes: The Spirit of a People Called Gullah Geechee is a traveling exhibition that is part of an ongoing initiative designed to document the African Diaspora of the Low Country and Sea Islands along the eastern coastline of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. This ever expanding collection of narratives displayed through images and oral history provides an intimate experience with the culture that ebbs and flows along the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor. Herman extends artistic and cultural exploration through this traveling photography and educational exhibit. This presentation also allows viewers to cross a bridge that will never be destroyed, a bridge that although burned by the trades of time has stood because of deep roots in the spirit.

Returning home to his native Georgetown, SC, writer and photographer Herman, sets out to examine “the young, the old, and the lives in between” of the unique Gullah Geechee coastal culture. He relates his strong ties to his homeland, family, and ancestry through thought-provoking photographs, video and writing.

Herman offered the following statement,

“The creator allows us to be a breathing vessel that can see, feel, and live. We can stretch to fit our imagination and then grow to imagine more. As an artist, I am inspired to create and recreate from the realities of life. My artistic endeavors are direct reflections of time, perception, and the living.”

A son of the Gullah Geechee people, Herman has roots deeply embedded in the soil of South Carolina. Currently, he serves as Co-founder/Creative Director of Preservation LINK, Inc., an education agency that works to educate youth through media arts and technology. Herman extends artistic and cultural exploration through his traveling exhibits and works to advance the field of visual literacy, preservation, and education. Herman is currently working towards his PhD in Art Education.

In her signature style, Canadian photographer Julie Moos captures a generation of women who have been active citizens, church members, and civil rights activists in Birmingham, AL. I Got Freedom Up Over My Head: Portraits by Julie Moos, Photographs from the Bank of America Collection features a series of fourteen photographs of the senior sisters of Birmingham, Alabama’s New Pilgrim Baptist Church.

These women are called the hat ladies in reference to the stunning crowns of fur, felt and straw. These special creations are customarily adorned with festoons of feathers, cascades of artificial flowers, or bold assemblies of sequins and rhinestones. The regal headdresses attest to the churchgoers’ desire to glorify the heavenly Savior each Sunday by outfitting themselves in the most splendid possible raiment.

In addition to being steadfast supporters of their church, the hat ladies look after the sick and raise money for college scholarships. Many of them were involved in the registration of black voters during the 1960s, which ultimately helped lead to the passage of significant civil rights legislation. These photographs serve as a historical documentation of a powerful group of women whose contributions to their community will never be forgotten.

Moos uses a large-format camera, simple lighting and a mobile studio to create portraits of people in pairs. She works in series to explore specific social and historical issues, including high school camaraderie and rivalries (Friends and Enemies, 2000), the legacy of racism in the Deep South (Domestic, 2001), the impact of genetically altered crops on American agriculture (Monsanto, 2002) and notions of allegiance and betrayal (Loyalty, 2007). Posing her subjects frontally, and in matter-of-fact terms, Moos allows the relationship between her sitters to become charged with speculative possibility.

Moos’ work was featured in the 2002 Whitney Biennial and has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago (2002), the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach (2004) and the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (2007). Her work is in the collections of numerous museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC, and the Detroit Institute of Arts, among other institutions. She recently completed a commission for the General Services Administration, The New Americans, 2013, picturing new citizens following the moment of their naturalization.

This exhibition is proudly sponsored by Bank of America.

Founded in 1974, Charlotte’s Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture (formerly the Afro-American Cultural Center) exists to present, preserve and celebrate the art, history and culture of African-Americans and those of African descent through dance, music, visual and literary arts, film, educational programs, theatre productions and community outreach. Named for Harvey B. Gantt, the prominent Charlotte architect and community leader and former Mayor of Charlotte, the Center is housed in an inspired and distinguished award-winning structure and is home to the nationally celebrated John and Vivian Hewitt Collection of African-American art. 

For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings, call the Center at 704/547-3700 or visit (www.ganttcenter.org).

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