For her second solo exhibition at moniquemeloche, Ebony G. Patterson presents …until you see them, a series of new, large-scale, mixed-media works on paper. Patterson’s signature, monumental mug-shot portraits have grown into complex groupings of full figures as she expands her exploration into the varied interpretation and appropriation of feminine archetypes by young men of the African diaspora. In this expansion, Patterson introduces the female figure to address modes of visibility and invisibility within a certain cultural code. Notions of the feminine, fashion, pattern, decoration and pastiche grow in …until you seem them, as Patterson explores a new forest of figuration.

Following her opening at moniquemeloche, Patterson will participate in a week long workshop at Theaster Gates’ new Arts Incubator in Washington Park, Nov. 15-21, with Patterson in dialogue with Krista A. Thompson, Associate Professor, Dept. of Art History, Northwestern University and Allison Glenn, Arts Incubator + Public Life Program Manager and Exhibitions Curator, on Thursday, November 21st from 6-7:30 PM. For further information visit Arts Incubator here.

Ebony G. Patterson (Jamaican, born Kingston, 1981, works Lexington, KY) is the recipient of many prestigious fellowships, awards and grants, including Musgrave Medal from the Institute of Jamaica (2012), The Andy Warhol Foundation Grant (2012), and Rex Nettleford Fellowship in Cultural Studies (2011). Recent exhibitions include Six Degrees of Separate Nations, Frost Art Museum, Miami, eMERGING: Visual Art and Music in a Post-Hip-Hop Era, The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA), Brooklyn, Aruba Biennial: Happy Islands, Jamaica Biennial, National Gallery of Jamaica, Kingston, and Caribbean: Crossroads of the World, The Studio Museum in Harlem, co-organized with El Museo del Barrio and the Queens Museum of Art, New York.

In 2014, Caribbean: Crossroads of the World, will travel to the Perez Art Museum Miami and Patterson’s work will be included in Disguise: Hidden Dimensions in African past, present and future art at the Seattle Art Museum and European Masters and Creativity in Caribbean Fine Arts at the Frost Art Museum, Miami. Patterson was recently lauded as “30 Black Artists Under 40” by The Huffington Post and “25 Artists to Watch and Collect” by ArtVoicesMagazine.com and graced the cover of the International Review of African American Art, Vol. 24, No. 3. Patterson is Assistant Professor in Painting at the University of Kentucky in Lexington.

Rashid Johnson “on the wall” @ moniquemeloche

Rashid Johnson’s Remembering D.B. Cooper “on the wall” installation is a mix of Johnson’s signature materials– plants, scarred wood and Shea butter — to explore the notion of escapism, an issue that continues to permeate his multi-dimensional practice. In Remembering D.B. Cooper, Johnson explores the personal as opposed to the political reasons for the famous, unknown hijacker of a Northwest flight in 1971- a media epithet known today as D.B. Cooper; today, the true identity of D.B. Cooper, who parachuted from the flight holding 200,000 worth of ransom money, remains unknown. Since his 2008 solo exhibition at moniquemeloche titled “The New Escapist Promised Land Garden and Recreation Center,” Johnson has carved out a space for a black secret society (the Boule) to study, meet, work, get their leisure on – and yes escape, and the lore of D.B. Cooper is yet another historical avenue for Johnson to mine.

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Tags: Bucktown, Ebony G. Patterson, Monique Meloche Gallery, Rashid Johnson