June 12 - July 4, 2021
Opening Reception June12th, 6-10pm, regular hours there-on Saturdays and Sundays 12-5pm.
Juneteenth Celebration with Artist Talk by Rhonda Walker June 26th, 3-9pm.
Closing Reception July 3rd, 5-10pm with Artist talks by Rhonda Walker and Remy A. Williams.
Closed July 4th.
Room 1
Augustus Hoffman
Inside Light, Outside Light.
“Where do you put a form? It will move all around, bellow out and shrink, and sometimes it winds up where it was in the first place. But at the end it feels different, and it had to make the voyage. I am a moralist and cannot accept what has not been paid for, or a form that has not been lived through.”
Philip Guston
In all of these paintings I work primarily from observation and allow my perception and intuition to guide me. Occasionally I will work from photography and my own imagination but only when I need to institute a type of creative disruption that moves the work forward.
I go from rapid moments of fast painting followed by long periods of slow looking.
When one vantage point sours, I shift my easel and perspective and begin again.
Despite the constant self-cannibalizing nature of my work, there are throughlines that persist: I keep investigating interior spaces and the richly dark, compressed logic of those spaces and the outside light that tears that reality wide open. The relationship between this inside light and outside light can be extremely subversive and presents itself through an inverted hierarchy.
Our perception belies our reality or vice versa.I find that light travels across intersecting forms in often violent ways. Opaque, sinister silhouettes smash into bleached out glowing shapes. Some forms function as embers that generate a smoldering light while others service as a shadowy disinfectant.
As a painter I am struggling to realize that I will never get this inside/outside relationship exactly right. These paintings are a love letter to that failure.
Augustus Hoffman is an artist who lives in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is primarily a representational painter who is concerned with the intersection of perception and observation. He has studied at Bard College, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the New York Studio School. He has taught at Bard Early College, The New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts, and The Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans. Augustus has shown his work all over the country most notably in New York City, Philadelphia, and New Orleans. He was recently an artist in residence at the Mount Gretna School of Art. This is his third solo exhibition at the Front.
www.augustushoffman.com
@augustushoffmanartwork
gus.hoffman@gmail.com
(520) 822 4831
Room 2
Remy + Others
Freak Show Vol 1
This show captures some works from over the last year of various moments and people in my life and travels. Im grateful for the opportunity to share my work and show the world the magical moments I’ve come across.
Remy A. Williams is a self taught photographer and student of life that loves capturing the often overlooked mundane moments in life. He main focus is Black People Doing Black Things, showing the beauty in variety of Black people across the world.
@blessthefreaks777
Room 3
Kristina Kay Robinson, Temple of Color and Sound: Maryam’s Refrain, Mixed Media Assemblage, site specific installation; dimensions variable, 2018-2019.
Kristina Kay Robinson
Temple of Color and Sound: Maryam’s Refrain
c'est une histoire sur le bruit de la rivière rencontrant la mer: Maryam de Capita was born in Capita, Republica. Capital city of a free Black republic on the Gulf coast of North America. Her last name is from the Latin, “per capita” or “by the head.” Maryam is an artist, mystic, and entertainer. She’s the proprietor of Temple of Color and Sound, an itinerant gathering, ritual, and performance space. Maryam is Republica’s official/unofficial ambassador. For the peoples who populate Republica, sound is an organizing principle and strategy for gaining and maintaining freedom. Maryam has been traveling about the world for the past few years sharing her philosophy about the use of objects, text, and the chops and loops of popular music as healing modalities. She arrived in the United States in 2017 to complete a full-length sound and film project, but along the way she encountered some of the pitfalls of fame. Armed with a fresh perspective on her homeland she faces the future with a new determination to finish what she started.
Kristina Kay Robinson is a writer, independent curator, and visual artist born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her ongoing installation and performance project, Republica: Temple of Color and Sound has been presented at “Welcome to the Afrofuture” during Miami Art Week, New Museum’s residency program, the New Orleans African American Museum and Independent Curators International’s, Notes For Tomorrow. The project was also featured as a part of a collaboration for MoMa’s Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America. Robinson is the co-editor of Mixed Company, a collection of short fiction and visual narratives by women of color. Her writing in various genres has appeared in Guernica, The Baffler, The Nation, The Massachusetts Review and Elle among other outlets. Robinson is a 2019 recipient of the Rabkin Prize for Visual Arts Journalism. Currently she serves as the New Orleans editor at large for the Atlanta based, Burnaway magazine.
Room 4
Rhonda Walker
Native Angeleno and Citizen of the Multiverse
REMEMBER
The show Remember is about remembering the shoulders upon which we stand as Black People. Meaning all those that came before us to pave the way. ANCESTORS. It is my interpretation of who we are now and the many aspects of where we came from and where we are going in the world. We are a very intricate part of Humanity…..WE ALL NEED TO REMEMBER THE CONTRIBUTIONS BLACK CULTURE HAVE MADE TO THIS WORLD AND THIS LIFE AND ARE STILL MAKING.
Rhonda is a self taught artist. Sculpture is her thing. Her work is inspired by her connection to the spiritual realm and her experiences in awakening life. Honoring her interpretation of the energy of Black people and Culture past, present and future through her eyes, spirit and ability to create what she sees.