Ella West Gallery is pleased to present new exhibition Holding Space: Dreams and Memories. Investigating the embodied experiences of migration, intergenerational tradition, institutional exclusion and gender variance, artists Isabel Lu, Julia Rivera and Toni Scott initiate a conversation around the concept of space, who is allowed to occupy it and how. Drawing from a range of media, subjects and symbols, each artist challenges the status quo and takes their own approach to ritual and self-definition. The exhibition is on view through Saturday, September 21, 2024.
Within their work, each artist creates a container to hold space not only for themselves, but for an audience whose experiences may be either reflected or challenged by the stories contained on canvas. First penned by psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, the enduring quote “between stimulus and response, there is space,” acts as an entreatment to examine the relationship between internal and external worlds. Through the concept of holding space, the audience is invited to examine both internal struggles and those encountered at the site of institutional structures.
“In Holding Space: Dreams and Memories, Ella West Gallery unites three artists representing different cultures and life experiences who all embody what it means to hold space,” said gallery founder Linda Shropshire. “With so many external and societal demands on our time, energy and attention, I am encouraged by how they implore us to generously forge more space for nurturing both our core foundational memories and the inspirations that track us toward our boldest dreams.”
Born in the Bronx in 1965, Julia Rivera has studied art around the world, including the SACI school in Florence, Italy, the Art Students League of New York and New York Art Studio in New York City, the National School of Fine Arts in Paris and the School of Plastic Arts in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Rivera’s work, with its characteristically bold use of color, inclusion of found paper media and
reference to 17th century classical techniques, unflinchingly investigates modern society, the role of womanhood and American statecraft as it applies to global refugees and Puerto Rican citizens. Featured works in the exhibition include portraits of females with their faces partially obscured by an outline of the United States of America forged from collage or gold foil. “I don’t want a painting that just decorates; I want to paint a story. And right now, this is a story. This is part of history, what we’re living through. I want to put that in a painting,” the artist shares.
Isabel Lu’s body of work began as an extension of their observations on the lack of cultural diversity in her studies on nutrition and public health in elite university settings. The North Carolina resident, a 2023 Emerging Artists-in-Residence and studio artist at Artspace in Raleigh, North Carolina, uses a language of cultural symbols, contrast between vivid and muted colors as well as ethereal, translucent brushwork in their investigation of their Chinese heritage, queerness, relationship to the body and concepts of ownership and identity.
Lu’s work documents the ridiculous and consequential moments of self-exploration and finding community in the South. In many of Isabel’s paintings, they enjoy the silliness and seriousness of using food as a meaningful symbol of objectification and ownership among queer Asian Americans. In the oil portrait Corn, Lu explores the absurdity of identity labels through the cultural ownership of corn in Latin American, Asian and American communities; as the identity and significance of corn is shaped by the context and the people around it, the manufactured notion of race and identity of humans follows a similar logic. Lu asks, “Am I Chinese? Asian? Asian American? American to you? What do I identify as to myself? It changes and morphs depending on the situation.”
Multimedia artist Toni Scott weaves together artistically powerful stories presented through installations, multi-media, photography, painting, sculpture and digital ingenuity, often referencing fraught histories. “Learning of my multicultural family heritage has inspired me to give life to the lost images and stories of history,” says Scott. “In every work I create resides a commitment to themes that build and enrich humanity.”
Scott’s work has been awarded and celebrated internationally at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles; Arthur M. Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology at Peking University, in Beijing, China; Changzhou Museum in the Jiangsu Province of China; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Sonja Haynes Stone Center; the Squire Foundation in Santa Barbara, California; and the prestigious College of Creative Studies Artist in Residence at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
The exhibition includes works from Scott’s vibrant, layered Indigo series. As a citizen of the Muscogee Creek Nation, these works represent Scott’s bridge between old worlds and new, sanctified by the traditions of her Muscogee Creek, African and African American ancestors. Each painting is described as a living prayer and an investment in lineages maintained by ceremonial practice. The evocative mark making and deep tonal hues call out for a meeting of the material and the spiritual.
Gallery Information
The gallery is located at 104 W. Parrish Street in Durham and is open to the public Wednesday through Saturday, noon to 5 pm, with private appointments available upon request. Holding Space: Dreams and Memories is on view through September 21, 2024. For more information about Ella West Gallery, the exhibition, or to inquire about available works for purchase, visit http://www.ellawestgallery.com or call (919) 485-9602.
