#micacuratorial

[scenefromthesidewalk]

November 19, 2017

“YOU ARE MY SISTER, NOT MY COMPETITION”

by Megan Lewis

A cum laude graduate of Towson University and curator for several prestigious museums and collections, with little left to prove, Yvonne Hardy-Phillips returned to the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in her 60s to pursue a graduate degree. Seeing a need for greater recognition of the African American neighborhood of Central East Baltimore she designed her MICA curatorial project, titled “You Are Here,” to showcase the area’s significant urban landscape and resilient community. In 2016 Hardy-Phillips invited Baltimore illustrator, and founder of the BLK Women apparel line, to contribute to her project at Biddle and Harford. Portraying three women of different hues The Baltimore Sun calls Lewis’s colorful addition to the project “a dialogue about support and love among women of color.”  @urbanhipsta/  @youarehere_twb  @micacuratorial  

[scenefromthesidewalk]

November 28, 2017

“NEW DAY”

by Jessie + Katey

Jessie Unterhalter and Katey Truhn met at art school in 2001, and their creative friendship and artistic collaboration is still going strong. Painting large-scale public murals since 2011 the two are inspired by the unique architectural surfaces of each environment and their artistic explorations draw from color combinations, patterns in nature, and woven textiles. Continually driven by the socially engaging nature of making public art, the two were recruited by Yvonne Hardy-Phillips in 2011 to paint this work at Biddle and Harford in Baltimore. In a resilient African American neighborhood that has faced its share of challenges over the last 50 years, Hardy-Phillips told The Baltimore Sun the “bold colors, green foliage and large brown hands holding cityscapes . . . portray urban living and draw people into the area.”  @jessieandkatey  @youarehere_twb  

[mdartplace]

American Made: Mass Production | Mass Incarceration explores the role of creativity and art in the prison system. An example from the exhibition includes photographs and texts by Robert Gumpert, photographer, and Sandra Cate, sociologist. Gumpert documents meals that inmates have concocted out of their limited ingredients. The images capture a creative cooking process that entertains the inmates. The photographs are paired with Cate’s texts, which are created  from interviews with inmates. The texts recount on their cooking or baking experience in prison, and have a light, friendly tone to accompany the playful quality in the photographs.

Not every piece captures a positive meaning in response to creativity. The works by former inmate, Angelo, illustrate how inmates react to the harsh conditions they live within the prison system. Angelo was in prison for twenty years before his release in 2014. His works date from 2001-2006, and are reproductions of highly rendered ink drawings. The imagery is accompanied with text depicting his experience in prison. Angelo documents everything, from what he saw, smelled, created, as well as the prison’s needs.