Glyphs of Time :: a blog by jarvis grant

February 17, 2017

Legacy, The 2017 African American Art Exhibit

Legacy Exhibit Invitation Image

It’s my pleasure and honor to be a participant at the Friendship Gallery at Friendship Heights Village Center exhibit,  Legacy, The 2017 African American Art Exhibit. The exhibition will be on display from February 6 until March 4, 2017. This group exhibit comprises a wide variety of art mediums encompassing painting, sculpture, printmaking and photography. These artists offer a visual narrative of African American experiences through their journeys in American history and American culture. Reflecting and interpreting aspects of contemporary life. You can view the digital version of the exhibition catalog here.

Curator Llewellyn Berry states; “The artist stands on the shoulders of many who have come before, providing technique, context, and reason. It is Legacy. They are generations of talented, visionary and gifted artisans. That instinctive sense of beauty, place, and purpose, coupled with a compelling need to produce and display it, adds to the never ending conversation about the inherent beauty of the African American experience.”

I’m exhibiting five prints from my Botanicium series. All images are pigment prints using the Epson K3 Ultrachrome ink set. I used Red River Paper’s Arctic Polar Satin luster paper. This paper yields a very luxurious and luminescent image quality that I want when printing these particular images. You can view the series at my website by clicking on the link above.

If you’re in the DC metro area, please come by to visit this wonderful exhibition. The Gallery at Friendship Heights Village Center hours are:

Monday – Thursday, 9:00 am to 9:00 pm
Friday, 9:00 am to 5:00 pm
Saturday & Sunday, 9:00 am to 2:00 pm
301.656.2797, Information Desk

The Friendship Heights Village Center is three blocks north of Friendship Heights Red Line Metro

 
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June 26, 2016

A Little Good News!

Last week a received an email from curator Zoma Wallace of the DC Commission of the Arts and Humanities Art Bank that one of my photographs had been selected to be part of the Commission’s new Washingtonia Collection. It’s always great to sell a piece of artwork. This is especially true now. I’ve had my share of challenges over the past couple of years. So, having the work be chosen as part of a major art collection is a great boost to the ego at just the right time.

The piece the city will purchase is actually part of my Citizens We project. The photograph, Cinderella of Lanier Heights, is a photograph captured at dusk in my Adams Morgan neighborhood in Northwest Washington, DC. I was photographing the firehouse when a woman in a long and fluffy dress walk into the frame. I’m always drawn to scenes right before the landscape drops into the darkness of night.

So many thanks again to the DC Commission of the arts and Humanities and its panelist for selecting my image.

This image is used in the Citizens We book sponsored by the Humanities Council of Washington, DC

This image, Cinderella of Lanier Heights, is part of my Citizens We book and exhibition project sponsored by the Humanities Council of Washington, DC, and now part of the DC Commission of the Arts Washingtonia Collection.

 
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June 19, 2016

New Website Update – New Start

Filed under: Design,Folio — Tags: , , , , , — Jarvo @ 1:00 am

Well it’s been a year or so since my last post. During that time I’ve been focusing on my Examiner.com articles and taking care of my family. The family thing has been huge and challenging.  The Examiner.com thing has been quite rewarding in terms of educational visibility. Yet, the thing that has really been interesting is the update and renewal of my website. I am ashamed to say it, but I haven’t updated my website in six years! That’s really bad. However, as I embark on new artistic adventures I needed my website to reflect all that I am currently doing. While the site was strong enough to show my talent,, Those images and accompanying text had very little to do with what I had been working on during that six year period.

I’m still in the process on updating the site. Working for the site to reflect my move from Jarvis Grant Photographer to Jarvis Grant Creative Strategist. Seems odd, yet makes perfect sense to me. I’ve always mashed up skill set to solve problems. Everything is a design problem. Yes, yes it is!

Jarvis Grant Imaging.

jgwebpage1

 
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November 26, 2011

Guest Blogger – Terry deBardelaben: Zhang Chun Hong at National Portrait Gallery

Zhang Hong at the NPG in DC

Zhan Chun Hong at the National Portrait Gallery, ©Terry deBardelaben

I was struck by Zhang Chun Hongs’ presence and what appeared, at the time to be, a woman in “command of her gallery”.  Tall, statuesque, stately, demure, and stunning. Words that I would use to describe Zhang Chun Hong. I happened upon Zhang Chun when she was being physically prepped- surrounded by technicians, for her 2:00PM presentation at the National Portrait Gallery’s Portraiture Now: Asian  American Portraits of Encounter exhibit.

After briefly speaking with the artist before strolling with her to her space I found Jhang to be friendly and very engaging.  She broke the ice by approaching us – Jarvis Grant and I.  At the beginning of her talk she began telling a very classical story of migration and change.  Information about how the artist gave birth to her renown symbolic portraits …streaming charcoal drawings mounted on white scrolls, which give her work a commanding and stately traditional presentation.

Zhang Chun Hong, Artist with Terry deBardelaben at the National Portrait Gallery

Zhang Chun Hong and Terry deBardelaben at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery. ©Jarvis Grant

Zhang Chun Hong’s work, on the surface, appeared ultra feminine.  After all, hair— every girl’s nightmare, desire, obsession and preoccupation WAS the focal point.  Yet, while I gazed at the striking portraits…I began to think about the bombarding questions provoked by the –black streaming, long flowing meticulously presented hair. But also, I wondered about the artists’ hair-… (Zhang stands approximately six feet tall with hair reaching down to her thighs). The obvious questions pertaining to…hair maintenance, hair care, length of time it takes to grow hair that long, the process associated with washing  and drying extra long hair, etc. etc. And Oh, had she ever considered cutting her hair, do her sisters, mother and aunts have long hair?   I wondered why in some cultures hair is
“ associated with life force, sexual energy, growth, and beauty”.  Why people question the beauty of women with bald or shaven heads?   I found myself wondering whether or not Zhang Chun or Hong Zhang as she is known in the US was attempting to make some sort of feminist statement that went beyond the politics of hair.  Perhaps her motivation was more about the dominance of the physicality of hairs’ impact on culture, gender and tradition.  So-oo, when Hong Zhang began speaking, I hung on to her every utterance.

Her autobiographical work, visually communicated her story was yet conveyed in an extremely intimate setting conducive to the confines of the gallery space.  The portraits, wood flooring and small gathering lent itself well to creating an environ that complimented the artists words and story telling allure.  Hong Zhang was humorous- recanting funny vignettes about the impact of language and culture on her life.  She has a very interesting personal history about her artist DNA.  She and her twin were both painters, winners of art competitions and to some measure are predisposed to being artist since both parents are art professors.  Before she arrived in Atlanta from Beijing in 1996 with her twin sister, she attended boarding school. They ate their meals together and spent a considerable amount of time together. She is left-handed and her sister right.  Other boarders were always fascinated by how much they seemed like one person when they sat eating side by side – one using the left hand and the other the right.  It tied in perfectly with her triptych of herself, her twin and the older sister.  Mind you these sculpture like portraits exaggerate the length and flow of the dark illumination of the hair, which at times makes one feel as though they are in the presence of statues.  Statues with their backs turned only allowing the viewer to engage the posterior view of the hair –with the slightest suggestion of a head.  However the unmistakable visual dominance of the composition is the hair…each strand articulated with precise clean lines.

Hong spoke of her East/West triptych having both a Renaissance and Chinese presentation.  In traditional Chinese paintings Jhang said that his advisors always flank the emperor.  In Jhang Chuns’ triptych –her older sister has the center portrait, and like a traditional Chinese painting which depicts the military advisor to the emperors’ left she symbolically presented her hair twisted toward the because she often took on the role as the fighter-protecting and coming to the aid of her twin.

As Hong stood in front of each portrait she transformed the space with warmth and insight about her life.  The behind the scene story of her journey to this country and her constant reference to her work gave those in attendance a brief look at the artist as conveyed through her own lenses.

Terry deBardelaben,
Artist, Educator and Researcher

Jarvis Grant photographing Zhang Hong at the National Portarit Gallery, ©

Jarvis Grant photographing Zhang Hong at the National Portrait Gallery, ©Terry deBardelaben

Zhang Chun Hong, Artist

Zhang Chun Hong, Artist, ©Jarvis Grant

 
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