This is Yours, That is Mine
01/24/2017-02/23/2017
The D'Aguilar Art Foundation is pleased to present
'This is Yours, That is Mine', a
presentation of new works by Jeffrey Meris and Tessa Whitehead. Both artists examine fragments of the
landscape as a record of the ruins of history and a demonstration of desire,
power and surrender. Meris exhibits drawings and sculptures that examine the
literal and physical street as a binding space for black culture and a stage
for trauma. Whitehead's paintings and
objects of unkept landscapes are an inquiry into failure and surrender.
JEFFREY MERIS
July 5th 2016, body is traumatized,
irresponsive. Blackness plunges into a coma.
This body of work serves as a grounds for
dialogue, engagement and repositioning of trauma executed against blackness.
Watching Alton Sterling’s and Philando Castile’s bodies desperately fall from
grace and to the tarmac- both made available for public consumption- left me
questioning the fragility and dispensability of not just black bodies but black
people. The mundane suddenly holds political significance when one thinks of
what it means to be street, of the street or from the streets that were not
really designed for or by us. The work oscillates between celebration,
contemplation, mourning and rebirth.
July 8th 2016, The Bahamas issues
travel warning “advising all Bahamians traveling to the US but especially to
the affected cities to exercise appropriate caution generally. In particular
young males are asked to exercise extreme caution in affected cities in their
interactions with the police. Do not be confrontational and cooperate.”
Jeffrey Meris is a Nassau
based artist born in 1991. Meris received an Associates of Art in Arts and Crafts
from the College of The Bahamas and a B.F.A in Sculpture from Tyler School of
Art, Temple University in May 2015. Meris is the recipient of 2010 Popopstudios
Junior Residency Award, 2012 Harry C Moore Lyford Cay Foundation Art
Scholarship and Temple University 2012 Scholar Award, winner of 2013 Central
Bank of The Bahamas Art Competition and Guttenberg Arts Artist in Residence
2016. Meris has shown locally and internationally in New York, New Jersey,
Philadelphia, Vienna and Haiti. Jeffrey Meris is the black power ranger.
TESSA
WHITEHEAD
Tessa
Whitehead’s explorations of landscape and objects explore the connection
between journey, landscape, love and loss. She objectifies symbols, and
symbolizes objects – a bed, a rainbow, a house, a kiss – which while anonymous
are also universal, and play with the tension between the disrupted forms and
the strong emotional and physical connotations we attach to them. The works draw from the act of looking at the
landscape as a way to describe the introspective self: as lovers, as
conquerors, as adventurers, as passive observers or active viewers. And how
this varies depending on your point of view and movement or whether the
geography is familiar or unfamiliar.
Whitehead received her MFA from The Slade School of
Fine Art, UCL, London. Recent exhibitions include a solo presentation at
VoltaNY (2016), Paintings 2008-2013,
POPOPstudios ICVA, Nassau (2015); Nassau Calling (with Heino Schmid),
curated by Amanda Coulson and Uli Voges, HilgerBROTKunsthalle, Vienna, Austria;
A Call For Drawings (with Heino
Schmid) (2015), project by Klaas Hoek, BAK, Utrecht; Showoff (with Heino Schmid), curated by LeandaKateLouise, London,
UK (2015). Whitehead was awarded the Chisenhale Studio4 Residency (2014), her
work was shortlisted for the Wells Art Contemporary, Well's Museum, UK
(2013), the Threadneedle Prize,
Mall Galleries, London (2012) and she was awarded the William Coldstream Memorial Prize for which her work acquired by
the University College London collection (2009).
