July 9 - August 7, 2022

Opening reception Second Saturday, July 8, 6-10pm.
Gallery hours are Saturdays and Sundays, 12-5pm.

Be sure to check out The St. Claude Art Rag for more info on the Second Saturday Art Openings on St. Claude!

Rooms 1 & 2

Renee Royale, Everlasting, Instant Black and White Film, 3.25 x 4.25 inches, 2013
Renee Royale, Tell Me Your Names, I Will Bear Witness, Mixed Media: Silk Satin Polaroid Print, Galvanized Steel, Wood, Various Dimensions, 2022
Yashi Davalos, Rich Auntie as Community Development Mother, Photo on Silk, 11x20 inches, June 2022
Yashi Davalos, Intellectual Gatekeeping: Judging a Book by the Table of Contents, Photography, 18x24 inches, April 2022
Alex Sorapuru, One for The CamerA, Acrylic and Pen on Canvas, 24 x 36 inches, 2022
Alex Sorapuru, Fall Far from The Tree 1, Photo on Silk, 11 x 20 inches, 2022

Past, Present, and Afro-Futurism
Yashi Davalos
Renee Royale
Alex Sorapuru

Past, Present, and Afro-Futurism is an afro-surrealist exploration into the timeline of black cultural representation and idealism in community. In reflecting on the legacies of black thought through art, we follow black exoctification from its origin, showing how the past shapes the present through social gatekeeping, and how aesthethics of excess serves as a cultural binary to allude the future of black life.

Yashi Davalos Artist Statement

The curation of this show was inspired the integrity of the following three series as its non linear fashion, centered and changed time in my life:

Rich Auntie Genesis
These archives of family photos on silk use textiles to portray elements of vanity while being hung on a close line to demonstrate the genesis of an upwardly mobile black woman who would later become one of the only rich aunties in her generation of the family’s legacy.

Behind the Grief
This series of T-shirt designs represents the surrealism of grief. Combining the Freak Nik aesthetics of Atlanta, displacement, and behind the scenes shots with memorial t-shirts, demonstrates dimension in processing grief, to allude to afro-futurism.

ProjectBaby Zone2Girl Dubois
This self-portrait series is an ongoing satirical reflection of my approach towards the Duboisian double consciousness theory, in the many versions of myself through my mobility as an Afrolatina girl born in the projects, raised well to do in Zone 2 Atlanta, and eventually displaced. Perhaps W.E.B. Dubois may have foreseen this in his data portrait presentation in Paris; how social invisibility, lack of representation of one's self instead of black people as the collective, can lead to downward mobility.

Alex Sorapuru Artist Statement

Inspired by the visualization of black cultural, and importantly, familial relationships; this new work explores the triumphs, failures, and juxtapositions of my return home to New Orleans. Through the central reference of past memories and photos, these paintings build on lessons learned in envisioning life as a queer black man. The topic of visibility, physical and perceived, drive the color pallet throughout the collection. Prominent use of directional line work compliments the organic composition of the contour drawings and highlights key relationships between the subjects of each piece. 

Renee Royale Artist Statement

The works shown speak to ancestry and generational ties as a Black quantum futuristic link that is as expansive as it is collapsible. My mixed media silk print is directly and indirectly influenced by my relationship with my great grandmother, who is pictured in her everlasting glory. Our extensions connect us to past lineage and are also present in our current experiences. 

Yashi Davalos is an emerging artist and curator based in New Orleans as a current member of The Front Gallery collective. Her upbringing as an Atlanta native has shaped the way her identity intersects hyper-capitalism, not only in her world view’s perception of Tokenism, but in expressing the many non-monolithic aspects of identity. As an artist she uses photography to explore narrative, challenging the social intersections of the femme aesthetic, class, and stigma, that trivializes mobility and connection. Yashira’s objective as a curator is to capture and research culture, with intersections included because they leave out a lot of stuff when they tell it. Her past curations include Past, Present, and Afro-Futurism also featuring her works at The Front Gallery, and serving as the Gallery Curator for The Front's Donde Se Despierta Mi Risa Latinx Group show. Her art has also been featured at Tulane's Carroll Gallery in New Orleans, In Partnership with Elevate ATL, and Mint Gallery in Atlanta.

Through a deliberate use of color blocking and intimate line work, Alex Sorapuru’s work centers itself around his recent return home to New Orleans. Also working as an architectural designer his acrylic and pen paintings are driven by his longtime passion. After graduating from LSU in 2016, Alex spent years in Colorado and Virginia where his creation of contour portraits became an important part of visualizing personal relationships and growth along the way. In 2018 his first show “I Never Learned To Swim” opened in Steamboat Springs CO, and he has continued to build his practice since then.

Renee Royale (b. 1990) is an artist, writer, independent curator, and digital strategist. Born in New York, she is a dual citizen of the United States and Barbados, and is currently based in New Orleans. As an artist, her practice is rooted in visual explorations of humans and the environments that we inhabit. She employs the use of medium format and Polaroid films for her visual storytelling.

Yashi Davalos
@yashidavalos
yashidavalosvisuals.com

Renee Royale
@reneeroyale
reneeroyale.com

Alex Sorapuru
@al.roux
alex-sorapuru.squarespace.com

Rooms 3 & 4

Craig Auge, Shorthand 28, Collage on Bloco Etiqueta, 7 x 5 inches, 2021
Cesar E. Lopez, Flag Portrait series, Digital Print Flag, 2021
C.J. Charbonneau, #166, iPhone photo from DISCARD series (Jo Swanson), 2022
Samantha Haan, This because of that 1 and 2, paper yarn and cotton, 37 x 28 inches each, 2019
Mary Clara Hutchison, Specimen I, 30 x 36 x 4 inches, Assemblage, 2021

Collective Unconscious
Curated by Samantha Best
Artists:
Craig Auge
Cesar E. Lopez
C.J. Charbonneau
Samantha Haan
Mary Clara Hutchison

Collective Unconscious is an exhibition featuring Craig Auge, Cesar Lopez, CJ Charbonneau, Samantha Haan, and Mary Clara Hutchison–the five artists who run PLUG, a curatorial collective in Kansas City, KS. Though their mediums and styles vary widely, the works on display at The Front share a common approach of repurposing systems and languages commonly found in our material world. For Auge, it’s salvaged industrial and print materials; Lopez, flag conventions; Haan, weave patterns; Charbonneau, abandoned garbage; and Hutchison, decaying personal objects. By either rendering the familiar unfamiliar, or the opposite–finding order in apparent chaos, these works challenge and expand our collective unconscious.

Samantha Best is an arts administrator, independent curator, and member of The Front, an artist-run gallery in New Orleans. Prior to joining Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans as Exhibition and Performance Manager, she worked as Exhibition Manager for U.S. art triennial Prospect.5, Exhibition Production Manager for the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, and Studio Manager for artist Sanford Biggers. After earning a BA in Art History from Virginia Commonwealth University, Best pursued a MA in Art History from CUNY--Hunter College where her research focused on how the internet is shaping contemporary art and exhibition-making. She has been a curatorial fellow at The Artist's Institute and Hunter College Art Galleries, a Graduate Curatorial Intern at the New Museum, and launched an online curatorial project, Tête-à-tête (tete-ahh-tete.net).For The Front, she has curated solo exhibitions of New Orleans-based sculptor Kyle McClean, painter Ann Marie Auricchio, Canadian sculptor Nicole Levaque, and forthcoming Australian filmmaker Liang Luscombe; group exhibitions Summer Reading at Tulane University’s Carroll Gallery and Imbolc; and in partnership with New Orleans book press Tilted House, hosted monthly Rubber Flower Poetry Hour events.

Craig Auge is a multimedia visual artist, curator, and organizer based in Kansas City, Missouri. His studio practice incorporates collage, painting, fibers, and plein air assemblage, with a focus on reclaimed and salvage materials. His work explores the relationships between material, shape, color, gesture and mark-making. These formal explorations potentially speak to relationships with self, each other, and what we call reality. His work has been exhibited nationally and he has participated in many collaborative projects such as Telephone, An International Arts Experiment originating in Seattle and The Billboard Creative Q1 in Los Angeles. His art has appeared in numerous publications including New American Paintings, Art Yellow Book, Cut Me Up and The Hand Magazine. He works professionally as an exhibition coordinator for the Kansas City Public Library. He also organizes Lodger, a roaming curatorial project and online gallery. He joined Plug as a co-director in 2021. He has held residencies at Sulfur Studios, Savannah, Georgia, and Elsewhere Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina. He recently completed a three-year studio residency at Charlotte Street Foundation, and is currently a Centerpiece Resident at InterUrban Arthouse in Overland Park, Kansas.           

Cesar E. Lopez (B. 1991, Guatemala; Kansas City - based) uses geographic language such as flags, map projections and globes to make visual and culturally significant works. Merging formal elements of painting and personal history. Cesar’s work explores the 3rd space through showcasing fictitious flags and manipulating them into personal narratives. His sampling of geographic symbols indicates meaning while retaining abstract form, which touches on the duality of his practice and identity.

C.J. Charbonneau is an arts writer, curator, and occasional artist based in Kansas City, MO. I am actively engaged as a connector and advocate with a focus on agency and access for women and disabled artists. Currently serving as Co-Director/Co-Curator of plug, an independent artist-run space. I am a 2019-2021 Charlotte Street Foundation Studio Resident, 2018 OVAC Art Writing and Curatorial Fellow, and the Director and founder of the KC Women in the Arts Networking Group. Recent artistic projects include DISCARDS, an ongoing photographic series of discarded objects, shot in situ, and featured on the Instagram account of Jo Swanson (my artistic alter-ego). A photographic mural of selected images was featured in the show “Over Under” at Lodger Gallery in June of 2021. Full series at IG @jo_swanson55

Fuck You, Jerry Lewis is a printmaking series of portraits of disabled creatives. These portraits feature snippets of text intended to distill my perception of the sitter, and can be found on www.cjcharbonneau.com.

Samantha Haan (b.1997) is an artist and curator based in Kansas City, Missouri. She is a resident of Holsum Studios where she makes weavings on her eight shaft loom. She makes system based works that investigate the building blocks of language. Including quilts, drawings and weavings. She is also the co-curator at Curiouser and Curiouser. A gallery in the Strawberry Hill neighborhood in Kansas City, Kansas. The project is currently in a shipping container as part of the CHWC incubator program. She is also a Curator at Plug Gallery with five other artists.

Mary Clara Hutchison is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Kansas City, Kansas. She holds a BFA from Loyola University New Orleans. Her work explores the intersections of daily ritual, memory, home, the sacred, and traditional consumption. She works with found and gathered objects alongside traditional craft materials, distorting and manipulating them to create sculptural portraits and memoryscapes. Her work has appeared in solo and group exhibitions across the US. She is a current member of PLUG, Inc. and a former resident of the Charlotte Street Studio Residency in Kansas City.

Samantha Best
@meanwhile_backattheranch
Craig Auge
www.craigdeppenauge.com 
Cesar E. Lopez
@youngbauhaus
C.J. Charbonneau
@jo_swanson55
Samantha Haan
@sam__haan
Mary Clara Hutchison
@murr.clurr