SHARON LOUISE BARNES

Process and Materials are essential elements of any artists’ practice, whether that be painting on canvas or creating sculpture. Over the course of her creative career, which has included everything from music to visual art, Barnes has turned the creation of her sculptures into an alchemical practice that allows her to find hope and transformation in the struggle to work with rough and salvaged materials.

“By using industrial materials that might normally be held in a laborer's hands, as well as an array of discarded materials that can be found on city streets, my abstract works are both conceptual and aesthetic,” explains Barnes.“They look outward into society, opening dialogs about marginalization, about how we determine value, and the potency of change. They also speak to my African American heritage where people built something from very little or nothing, and demonstrated the power to transform one’s condition through the exercise of will.”

The recurring motif of cloud and tree-like formations made of interwoven strips of roofing paper appears in suspended sculpture pieces like “She Wove Constellations Through Her Dreadlocks” and “Humming in the Night.”  “Viewpoints: A Verité” juxtapose found photo transfers with abstract acrylic and mixed media backgrounds. The visceral works are a coalescence of passions she’s been exploring as an artist for almost two decades.

“On this creative path, nothing has been more remarkable in my memory than when my fifth-grade teacher gave me the tools of perspective drawing to create the illusion of reality, or when my African American Art History professor, renowned artist Dr.Samella Lewis, exposed me to the visual artists of the Black Arts Movement,” says Barnes. “These instances truly changed my life because they brought me to understand both the sheer magic of art and its unrestrained power to communicate.”

Monica Ikegwu
Monica Ikegwu is a 19-year-old figure painter born and raised in Baltimore, MD. Ikegwu uses her work as a platform to bring about the occurences that goes unnoticed to the public as well as a means of sharing thoughts on certain subject matter. She has been awarded as a Young Arts Finalist (2017), a Gold medal winner in the NAAC PACT-SO National competition (2016), and as a Scholastic silver medal portfolio winner (2016). Her work was recently displayed and exhibited at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum as well as at Ida B’s Table in a group show early in 2018. She now attends and studies at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) as a Junior. This is Monica’s first official gallery show.