Figurative Summer: Amani Lewis, Ludovic Nkoth, Raelis Vasquez, and Cameron Welch
Jenkins Johnson Projects is pleased to present Figurative Summer, our first virtual exhibition. Figurative Summer features the work of Ludovic Nkoth, Cameron Welch, Raelis Vasquez and Amani Lewis. The works of these emerging artists, which encompass veins of both abstraction and figuration, represent the body in radical ways to tell stories and explore vital social concerns. The exhibition opened with Nkoth, followed by Welch, Vasquez and Lewis joining throughout the summer. Each artist served as the Spotlight Artist for seven days, following which they will be presented in the group exhibition June 24-August 27, 2020.
FIGURATIVE SUMMER SPOTLIGHT SCHEDULE
June 24 - July 2 - Ludovic Nkoth
July 9 - 16 - Cameron Welch
August 6 - 13 - Raelis Vasquez
August 20 - 27 - Amani Lewis
Each artist will be the Spotlight Artist for seven days, following which they will be presented in the group exhibition June 24-August 27, 2020. See schedule below:
June 24 - July 2 – Ludovic Nkoth
July 9 - July 16 – Cameron Welch
August 6 - 13 – Raelis Vasquez
August 20 - 27 – Amani Lewis
Ludovic Nkoth is a New York-based artist. His work is heavily informed by life events which led him to move from his native home of Cameroon, West Africa, to the United States when he was thirteen. Leaving his birth-family and siblings, he found solace and comfort in the creative process while being raised primarily as “a stranger in a strange land”. It wasn’t until he migrated to the United States that he began to reconsider his own culture as a catalyst to locate his identity.
Nkoth’s work presents a complex but highly personal investigation of a very personalized view of Africa, his family history, and the cultures, traditions, and ideas of Africa and its diaspora pre-and post-colonialism. His paintings are approached with a type of naive brusqueness, an immediacy and boldness of color that suggests both a passion and sense of discovery. African symbols such as masks, patterns, and other symbols of identity and culture remain consistent throughout. “I want my art to be political. Being an artist is a political stand in itself.” Nkoth is an MFA candidate at Hunter College, and received a BFA from the University of South Carolina.
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Cameron Welch’s mosaics reference mythology, Black identity and modern society, combining found artifacts from the recent past including CDs, brooms, mirrors, and drums. The surface of each work is crafted out of tiles pieced together from larger block which form individual lines throughout the work. These labored surfaces are then collaged and painted in a frenetic manner that pushes against the precious nature of the mosaic process. He was recently included in Antwaun Sargent’s Then & Now along with Chase Hall at Jenkins Johnson Projects.
Welch has been the recipient of several awards including the Inaugural One River School Emerging Art Award, and Columbia University Scholarship of Merit. Welch has an MFA from Columbia University, and a BFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has exhibited nationally and internationally, with an upcoming solo exhibition at Makasiini Contemporary in Finland.
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Raelis Vasquez draws on historical, political and personal narratives. His paintings are figurative compositions that conjure the complexity of the Afro-Latinx experience. The figures in Vasquez's work inhabit a state of vulnerability that often encourages the viewer to question their positions on class, race, and geography. Vasquez immigrated to the United States in 2002 from the Dominican Republic. He feels an overpowering responsibility (or calling) to the arts and towards his Black, Latinx, and immigrant communities.
Vasquez paints using oils in a naturalistic manner as a means to give clarity to the subjects presented. His devotion is to the accurate representation of the convoluted histories of the Dominican Republic. He aims to highlight an allegorical narrative that presents the psychological states of the figures in his works while presenting a window to the viewer of their daily lives. Vasquez is a MFA candidate at Columbia University, and received a BFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
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Amani Lewis' works aim to shift the dominant narrative of Baltimore to hold the people and the complexity of their stories at the forefront to deepen the subject’s perspective of themselves, their power and their relationship to the city. By examining how Baltimore is depicted in the news, press, and across social media, they have deepened their understanding of how that city is perceived through an exterior lens. Amani begins with found and original photography of quotidian life in Baltimore, and then layers on expressive contour lines, a process that shifts the viewer’s focus away from the reality of the lives and circumstances of the subjects. In creating a visual cacophony, Amani compels the viewer to look closer, to hone in on distinct pockets of the canvas, and in the process, uncover aspects of the narrative that are seemingly—and perhaps willingly—overlooked.
In 2016, they graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art with a BFA in General Fine Arts and Illustration.
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Amani Lewis, PRAYER WARRIOR, 2020
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Amani Lewis, WE GOT WEALTH IN HIGH PLACES! HE SUMMER TIME FINE! (Proverbs 13:22), 2020
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Amani Lewis, Miami Dade: ...but the key to Life is Loyalty, 2019
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Amani Lewis, QUANN (Psalms 91: 9-11), 2020
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Amani Lewis, WHAT IT DO BABY!? Portrait of Baby Kahlo (Proverbs 20:12-13), 2020
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Amani Lewis, Untitled, 2020
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Amani Lewis, Giovanni in the Meadows, 2019
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Raelis Vasquez, Dias y Noches (Days and Nights), 2020
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Raelis Vasquez, Seth and Iris, 2020
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Raelis Vasquez, Reciting Memories, 2020
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Cameron Welch, Hood Ornament (Bad Trip), 2020
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Cameron Welch, Wig Splitter (Irony of a Negro Policeman Cont'd), 2020
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Cameron Welch, Comic Relief, 2020
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Cameron Welch, Hood Ornament, 2020
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Cameron Welch, X Marks the Spot, 2020
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Cameron Welch, Black Metal, 2020
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Ludovic Nkoth, Student in Straw Hat, 2020
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Ludovic Nkoth, Item #04, 2020