Events

Youngblood uses Northeast Louisiana’s landscape and old family photographs as inspiration for her artistic practice. She reclaims her roots by creating stunning oil paintings using these two types of source images. Her reclamation project mirrors her coming of age as a young artist with that of her family pursuing the American dream in the Delta in the past. She approaches her work with a reverence that is palpable. The visceral nature of her work is fitting being as you are witnessing her becoming something new when spending time with her paintings.

The Masur Museum of Art’s Annual Juried Competition showcases contemporary artists throughout the United States of America working in any medium. This long-running juried competition also showcases some of America’s best curatorial talent. Recent jurors include Holly Hughes, Albright-Knox Art Gallery; Sandra Firmin, Colorado University Art Museum; Kelly Shindler, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis; George Shackelford, Kimbell Art Museum; Liza Simone, Phantom Galleries, Los Angeles; Alison Greene, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; David Houston, currently Bo Bartlett Center; and Miranda Lash, currently Speed Art Museum.

We are honored to have this year’s juror Gia Hamilton, Joan Mitchell Center Director.

Hamilton’s practice as a cultural facilitator is collaborative and community-based. Artists she has recently hosted at the Joan Mitchell Center, New Orleans include Firelei Baéz, William Cordova, Blane De St. Croix, and Mei-Ling Hom. In 2009, Hamilton founded Gris Gris Lab, as a place-based incubator and cultural exchange space to ensure that emerging thought-leaders could actualize their interdisciplinary projects through an innovative live-work model in Central City, New Orleans. To date, her work with Gris Gris Lab includes the exhibition, Invisible Man at the McKenna Museum in New Orleans for Prospect 2. Her current projects include the Atlanta Biennial, Southern Parlour, and the Afrofuture Society Salon series. Hamilton founded the Afrofuture Society in 2015. The Afrofuture Society is an online platform for artists of color that provides a place to communicate across disciplines and communities. Hamilton is currently on the board of the Alliance for Artist Communities and was a Dr. Norman Francis Leadership Institute 2014 Fellow. The Huffington Post, Come Bien, Pelican Bomb, and Education Revolution have published her writing.

Due to unforeseen circumstances, Gia Hamilton is no longer available to come to the reception. Daniel Stetson, Executive Director of LSU Museum of Art, has stepped in to be the Second Juror for this exhibition.

Daniel will select award winners and give a Gallery Talk at 6:45 pm.

We are happy to have been able to work with both jurors!

We are grateful to have Daniel Stetson, LSU Museum of Art Executive Director step in as our Second Juror.

Daniel E. Stetson has over 30 years of executive museum and curatorial leadership experience, including public and private universities and government-based and private not-for-profit organizations. Stetson assumed the position of Executive Director of the LSU Museum of Art in January 2016. Before coming to LSU, Stetson served as executive director of the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, Tenn. Prior to that, he was the executive director of the Polk Museum of Art in Lakeland, Fla., for nearly 15 years. Stetson holds a BA in art history from the State University of New York at Potsdam and an MFA in museology from Syracuse University. He is a 2010 participant in the Getty Museum Leadership Institute at Claremont Graduate University in Los Angeles. He continues to believe that all art is local and that good art happens everywhere.

Participating Artists
Perry Angelora (NY), James Xavier Barbour (NY), Claire Bendiner (CA), Kelly Boehmer (GA), Jesse Lee Brongersma (NY), Lindy Chambers (TX), David Contreras (CA), Barbara Crawford (VA), Carla Crawford (CA), Julie Crews (LA), Dean Dablow (LA), Mary Jean Davis (TX), Rodrecas Davis (LA), Mira Dayal (NY), Brent Dedas (KY), Lisa DeLoria Weinblatt (NY), Matthew Derezinkski (MO), Kristen Downing (LA), Patty B. Driscoll (AL), Lauren Duffy (WI), Keith Dull (OH), Walter Early (NY), Sofia Echa (NY), Shelley Feinerman (NY), Morgan Ford Willingham (KS), Kit Gilbert (LA), Abigail Good (LA), Samantha Goss (SC), Isabel Gouveia (FL), C’naan Hamburger (NY), Frank Hamrick (LA), Carol Hanna (MI), Michael Hewett (TX), Kei Ito (MD), Wendy Kawabata (HI), James Kelson (NY), Judy Lipman Shechter & David Shechter (NY), Harry Longstreet (WA), Dana Mano-Flank (CA), Stacy Medaries (LA), P.J. Mills (FL), Katie Minyard (LA), Lacy Mitcham (TN), Lake Newton (MD), Trent Pechon (LA), Pat Phillips (LA), Julie Plasketes (AL), Brittany Powell Parich (OR), Amanda Roe (LA), Les Schmidt (LA), Robert Schwieger (IL), Jon Shannon Rogers (CA), Ruth Sharton (FL), Bertrell Smith (CA), Susan Stephenson (RI), Alessandra Sulpy (NC), Tore Terrasi (TX), W. Max Thomason (CO), Monica Tiulescu (CA), Siavash Tohidi (MD), Anne Wedler (AL), Simone Welsh (DE), Terrence Williams (LA), William Winbush (CA), Kalina Winska (GA), Carolin Wood (NY), Christine Wuenschel (IN), and Robert Zurer (NY)

The Masur Museum of Art’s Artist-in-Residence Program consistently showcases Northeast Louisiana culture and accomplished artists from outside our area. We choose artists with little to no connection to Louisiana because it removes all assumptions in terms of looking at our culture. Artists who are curious by nature, improvise well, and have something about their studio practice that is compatible with Louisiana are natural fits. If an artist is a blank slate and earnestly wants to learn about us, it will translate to our audience, who we try to include in the creative process. If we remove as many barriers as possible for people coming to the Masur to see art, it will be a more personal experience, especially for those who may be unsure of how to respond. This provides an opportunity for Louisiana natives and transplants alike to feel more connected to our shared cultural heritage.

Our most recent Artist-in-Residence, Beili Liu, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at Austin. Most of Liu’s projects combine folk craft traditions with a sense of place to create metaphorically rich installations. Her work is always beautiful, delicate, and overwhelmingly intricate. Experiencing Liu’s work in person is like seeing a memory.

Upon inviting her to visit the Masur this past spring, we assembled a group of people who could give Liu an introduction to a variety of folk crafts tied to Louisiana. The resulting program was a Cultural Exchange Panel. Members of our community, with Liu in the crowd, listened to Sarah Albritton, Rose Fisher-Greer, Danny Frasier, and Mary Shambin speak about their experiences as masters of their crafts. Each is respectively a renowned storyteller and folk painter, an expert cane basket weaver holding onto her Choctaw roots, an amiable man who ties traditional hoop-style fishing nets with great speed, and a pillar in the quilting community of Northeast Louisiana. Susan Roach, a respected folklorist emceed the event and ensured Liu left with a thorough introduction to skills that may inform the work she creates for her exhibition at the Masur. It is my hope she carries the stories and skills she learned along with her for future projects, making her time in Louisiana part of her personal narrative.

In the days following the Cultural Exchange Panel, Liu gave a lecture about her career and studio practice, met with museum members over cocktails, ate at local restaurants with members of Monroe’s arts community, and went on a memorable canoe trip in Black Bayou Lake. While on the lake Liu was entranced by how water trapped on top of lily pads shined as though it was electrified. Upon touching it, she discovered the bubbling, flashing water flowed like quicksilver. Since hearing about the abovementioned crafts, and their ties to the land, Liu has endeavored to capture this fluid relationship in a single work of art. The selection process of the title for the exhibition, as well as the work to be exhibited, is in progress. Please come see the results, and attend more programs with Beili Liu at the Masur Museum of Art between November 28, 2016, and March 11, 2017.