Grand Patron

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Masur Museum of Art presents a solo exhibition by Monroe-based artist Drék Davis, Trismegistus: In the Garden.

About the Exhibition:

This exhibition has several points of origin. There is the myth of Hermes Trismegistus (The Thrice Great), a Jazz song by the same name (Zane Rodulfo), and a meditation on how existence is the process of transmutation. We grow by transforming life’s lessons into something substantive.

Birth, death, relationships, and the acquisition of knowledge are all portals through which we travel. Those of us that identify as “creatives” have the ability to alchemize pain into purpose. Ideas into objects. Dreams into reality. Much in the way many have attempted to turn lead into gold, the works presented here aim to turn the heavier things of life into points of light. Reflections on the political, spiritual, familiar and familial act as a mirror for the possibilities that stretch before us. Knock three times. Watch the closing doors.

About the Artist:

A native of Monroe, Georgia, Rodrecas Davis is a 2006 graduate of the University of Georgia Fine Arts program – with an emphasis on drawing and painting. Primarily a mixed media artist, Davis is also a former columnist for the Athens Banner-Herald and Code Z Online: Black Visual Culture Now. Davis has presented papers at several academic conferences, including the HUIC Conference (Hawaii University International Conferences) Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences, for which he discussed manifestations of Hip-Hop culture in the visual arts. His work has been featured in the Politics Issue of Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters, ColorLines, and over sixty exhibitions. Mr. Davis is Professor, and Head of the Department of Visual & Performing Arts at Grambling State University, in Grambling Louisiana. A recipient of the Take Notice Fund Grant, awarded by the National Performance Network (Ford Foundation). He recently served as juror of the 77th Annual Wabash Valley Exhibition, at the Swope Art Museum (IN).

Mr. Davis’ area’s of specialization are Conceptual Art & Design, Mixed Media Assemblage, Soft Sculpture, Installation Art, Digital Media, and Photography. As an educator his courses cover studio-based subjects, art history, and professional practices & career development for Studio Art majors. Davis has exhibited in numerous shows, and curated several. He is a frequent participant at academic regional, national, and international conferences where he presents lectures on the various intersections of Popular Culture and Visual Art.

www.akaprofessordavis.com

Grounds for Departure will feature abstract painting and sculpture that engages directly with the architecture of the museum’s structure, mapping its domestic history within the walls of the current-day art museum. Through Katie Ford’s found-object sculptural assemblage and Marlisa Dunn’s abstract paintings of flowers, the works on display will explore the traditional boundaries of domestic space and present instead the absurd or unrecognizable abstraction of every-day objects and flora. A distinctly feminine “prettiness” imbues the objects on display, initially aligning with the expectations historically placed on women’s production within a domestic space; however, this surface familiarity is destabilized by both artists as the forms they use become fragmented and reconstituted, abstracting their origins and reversing the logic of a produced object. Through this reversal, the exhibition reframes domestic space not as a place of confinement, but as a site of transformation and departure.

About the Artists:

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