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Io Palmer — Artstars
Modou Dieng — Black Star
For Release: October 20, 2009Gallery talk with Palmer and Dieng:
Sunday, November 8 at 3 p.m.
Reception for the Artists following:
Sunday, November 8, 2009 from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Exhibition continues through December 13, 2009
Closed for Thanksgiving: November 26–29
The Art Gym, Marylhurst University
Curator: Terri Hopkins
Two new exhibitions will open at The Art Gym on Sunday, November 8 with a gallery talk at 3 p.m. followed by a free public reception for the artists from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. The Art Gym's main space features 12 mixed media sculptures by Washington-based artist Io Palmer. African-born, Portland-based artist Modou Dieng will present a series of collages in The Art Gym's Gallery 2. Both exhibitions continue through December 13. Admission is free.
The two artists take different approaches to the examination of stardom and status in art and culture. Palmer’s exhibit is made up of mixed media sculptures, and Dieng’s exhibit features vinyl record assemblages that make paintings.
Portlanders were introduced to Palmer’s work in the 2008 exhibition Working History: African American Objects at Reed College. Palmer teaches at Washington State University in Pullman. Artstars was funded in part through a grant from the Clackamas County Cultural Coalition and the Oregon Cultural Trust.
Dieng, who is from Senegal, Africa, was one of 20 artists presented by the Studio Museum of Harlem in Flow, an exhibition that focused on a new generation of international artists from Africa. Dieng teaches at the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland. Black Star was made possible in part through a Faculty Development Grant from the Pacific Northwest College of Art.
Io Palmer — Artstars
Io Palmer’s exhibit explores the ideas of stardom and the correlations between art and athletic practice. For the past three years, Palmer worked on a series called Artstars, creating a dream team of art players. Palmer’s desire to put together the Artstars team is loosely related to the 1992 Olympics basketball Dream Team, which included all time great players Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Patrick Ewing, Isaiah Thomas and Scottie Pippen. In contrast to the fame of these basketball superstars, Palmer’s Artstars dream team members remain anonymous. Each sculpture in the Artstars series is based on one of Palmer’s personal art heroes.
Palmer’s goal for The Art Gym exhibition has been to complete and show 12 Artstars. For the earlier works in the series, completed from 2007 to 2008, Palmer placed cotton and linen dresses on dress forms and paired them with mops constructed of hair, hair implements and found objects. As the work has developed during the past year, the dresses have grown taller and more god-like. They are no longer placed on dress forms, and the wigs and hairpieces that make up the cleaning implements or float above the dresses are less racially identifiable. Palmer’s combination of the Artstars with janitorial supplies brings up the nature of janitorial jobs and who does those jobs. She recognizes these connections and emphasizes the importance and necessity of the physical and psychological tasks of removing obstacles that stand in the way of making work.
Palmer received her BFA in Painting from Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia, and her MFA in Ceramics from the University of Arizona. She has exhibited in the United States and Canada, including shows, galleries and museums in Arizona, California, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Montreal. Palmer also collaborates on Serve & Project, a socially conscious food-based, art-spaced project.
Modou Dieng — Black Star
Modou Dieng makes artwork that comes from a complex brew of experience. He is an African from Senegal, where he received his undergraduate university education in the capitol city of Dakar, an urban metropolitan area that is home to more than 3 million people. Dieng, who was born in 1970, was a member of the first generation born after the country’s independence from France in 1960. In part as a reaction to the negative legacy of French colonialism, Dieng became attracted to African-American music and art.
A few years ago, Dieng began using old vinyl records to make paintings that paid tributes to Jimi Hendrix and Jean-Michel Basquat. The collages he has created for The Art Gym exhibition consider culture with a combination of vinyl records, record jackets, memorabilia and reproductions of memorabilia. The focus is on the role and impact of black artists like Isaac Hayes (1942 –2008), whose rise to stardom began in the 1960s with albums Hot Buttered Soul and Black Moses and culminated in 1971with an Academy Award for Best Original Song for the film Shaft.
Dieng earned his BFA in 1995 from the École National des Beaux-Arts in Dakar. Following graduation, he traveled and exhibited internationally, participating in shows in Brussels, Paris, and Madrid. Dieng later moved to the United States and completed his MFA at the San Francisco Art Institute in 2006. His art has been exhibited widely in the United States and in 2008, was included in Flow at the Studio Museum of Harlem. Dieng runs Work/Sound Gallery in Portland, Oregon.
About The Art Gym
The Art Gym programs are supported in part by the Oregon Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Art Gym is on the third floor of the B.P. John Administration Building at Marylhurst University, which is located one mile south of Lake Oswego on Highway 43. The Art Gym’s regular hours are Tuesday through Sunday, noon to 4 p.m. Admission is free. For additional details, call 503.699.6243.
Founded in the fall of 1980, The Art Gym at Marylhurst University has a 28-year history of presenting work by hundreds of artists based in the Northwest. The Art Gym has published more than 50 exhibition catalogues and sponsored more than 100 conversations about art in the region. In 2004-2005, The Art Gym was a recipient of the Governor’s Arts Award.