BLACK VOICES VIRTUAL EXHIBITON

December 5th 2020 - January 3rd 2021
Virtual Reception: Saturday, December 5th 6-7:30 pm CST via Zoom

Juror: Ciara Elle Bryant

500X presents the first annual Black Voices exhibition! This year’s show is juried by artist and curator, Ciara Elle Bryant! The exhibiting artists for the show are:

Tiara Unique Francois 
Nitashia Johnson
Elizabeth Hill 
Don Dixon
Aliyah Cydonia
JoMerra Watson
Victoria Simmons
Jamila Mendez
Desireé Vaniecia 
Jessi Jones
Solomon Mahlatini
Molly Sydnor
Charles Gray 
Asia Youngs-Bailey

Black Voices runs from December 5, 2020-January 3, 2021 at 500X Gallery. 500X recently moved to a new location in West Dallas. The address is 516 Fabrication Street. The gallery is open on Saturdays and Sundays from 12-5 pm, by appointment only. To schedule an appointment, please visit: http://www.500x.org/schedule-an-appointment

About the juror: Ciara Elle Bryant is a multidisciplinary creative residing in Dallas, Texas. She uses mixed media techniques to discuss the identity of Black culture and how it exists in the new millennium. Bryant also facilitates multiple artist workshops during the year for at-risk youth and practicing artists to demonstrate the constant need for ever-evolving immersion in the arts while creating. Born in Miami Florida, Bryant received her bachelor’s degree in Arts and Performance with a concentration in Visual Arts from The University of Texas at Dallas in 2016 and her MFA from Southern Methodist University in 2020.

Click here to see the Black Voices image list with prices that corresponds to the gallery layout!

Tiara Unique Francois 

Instagram: @tiara.francois

Artist Statement:
I am interested in colors overlapping to create another. I am interested in layers and layers of paint and sometimes glitter or rhinestones or star stickers from the dollar store. I am interested in the childhood memories I remember and the ones I’ve forgotten, and how the paint on my brushstrokes recalls it. I am interested in the moments where we wait for our name to be called, the moments right before a hug and after, the moment right before the camera flash goes off. The moments of in-between everything else. My paintings remember the small, quiet moments that create the most of our lives.

Nitashia Johnson

Instagram: @nitashiajohnson

Black Arch, Pain, Black Sole (Triptych)
Digital Photo. Roland Print on Baryta
Print Edition Number: 3 of 10
18 x 27 in
2020
$1800

Artist Statement:
When I was younger, I always created works to make others happy or to support them in one way or another. That way of thinking still manifests in me today. Helping others and being able to share their stories is the reason I continue to make art. Whether I’m taking a portrait for someone to hang on their wall or creating something magical with traditional art supplies, I want to help others share who they are. My creative practice is a combination of many things; that’s the reason I love it so much.

The combination of art + design defines me; in reality, it makes up who I am. My studio practice ranges over the wide creative platform. I’ve studied and worked as a graphic designer and photographed topics that have dealt with educational, social, and environmental issues. I’ve also experimented with traditional art forms, such as figure drawing and mixed media. Being able to communicate artistically is also why I work with so many different mediums.

I can say my work is my experimentation with life, it’s how I explore the world. One of my past projects consists of photo illustrations that represent the way women are depicted in the media. Another series I developed, consists of images I’ve created of complete strangers, documenting who they are through photography & video. I’ve also created a photographic book series that allows 14 participants each year to express themselves through written reflections called The Self Publication (www.theselfpublication.com). There is something I find truly extraordinary about each and every one of the people I work with. I consider it social work, a way to clean away the harsh stereotypes placed upon black men and women here in America and those who live in other parts of the world.

My passion leads me and has pushed me to form a strong creative after-school program called The Smart Project. This is a creative after-school program created to offer artistic workshops to kids who lack resources. I sometimes feel bad that I can’t help everyone, but I’m using everything I have to make a change with my creative soul.

I believe that my role as an artist is to share and tell stories, to capture and create moments that will stand the test of time. Art, design, and video gives me the power to help others express who they are. These creative areas also help me express myself as well. In fact, my creative practice is simply a self-portrait in which I have the opportunity to experiment with and change every day.

Elizabeth Hill

Instagram: @_zabe_

gentle reminder
Acrylic, interior paint, chalk pastel, charcoal, and graphite on watercolor paper; mounted on wood
$200

Artist Statement:
My work serves as a personal exploration of containment and connectivity in two-dimensional and three-dimensional space. I have always been drawn to works of art that have some sort of three-dimensional element, and I explain this in my work by including textural components such as wire, fabric, string, found objects, or wood. (I want people to feel the urge to touch my art!) The objects I incorporate into my pieces are reduced to their basic, formalist qualities. As someone whose thoughts are hyperactive and entangled at any given hour of the day because of mental health issues, I see the simple act of placing shapes within shapes as an exercise in healthy mental compartmentalization. Layering 2-D and 3-D forms on top of and within one another is my way of sorting out the scrambled ball of static that inhabits my mind. By creating physical manifestations of this internal process, I feel that I’m investigating the connection between abstraction and my own humanity. 

My style also plays on themes of control and vulnerability. As a Black woman in America, I am stuck at the crossroads of my Blackness and my womanhood. This intersection within my identity has played a very crucial role in how I navigate life because it’s directly correlated to the amount of power I hold systemically. This is made evident in my body of work by the fluctuations between clean lines and geometric shapes and more loose, organic forms. I cope with feelings of powerlessness by inserting more structure into my pieces. However, constantly grasping at the need for control can be quite draining--in regards to making art and just living life-- so I tend to balance out this structure by making room for spontaneity and impulsivity in my process

Don Dixon

Instagram: @scrib_creative_dondixon

Artist Statement:
Don Dixon bears witness to the rawness of the human experience through paintings, illustrations, animations and books. His captivating works are visual adventures of extremes that help people relate to universal social issues on a deeply personal level. On the same plane one can see tender loving care juxtaposed with raw rage. The common theme that binds his work together centers on how people navigate the human condition.

He has a boundless childlike imagination and perpetual sense of wonder that permeates his works. The level of aesthetic mastery in his works started a new genre, NeoScribblism, an electric mash-up between expressionism, futurism, cubism and modernism.

Seeing the world through his filter exudes a freedom during life’s complex challenges. Themes range in scope from losing a loved one to being bullied at school, to his latest body of work on the current state of America’s systemic racism, Pain and Process.

Aliyah Cydonia

Instagram: @aliyahcydonia

Cydonia
Oil on canvas
2019
$120

Artist Statement:
In my work I am allowed complete control, in what I say, what I want and also keeping in mind the ideas of “Will I somehow find myself in this?”. The way I see it is, what does my subconscious have to say for itself? Inspiration can come from any and everything, my main source for inspiration is talking. I’ll ramble on for hours, allowing myself to get the unfinished thoughts out. I want my art to tell people that they are not alone, in the unknown abyss. I’ve been working with oil painting for a year now, I’m excited to try new mediums throughout the years. Although, for right now oils have been satisfying the itch.

JoMerra Watson

Instagram: @x_jolepeintre

Naimah 
Oil & Acrylic on Canvas
2020
$400

Artist Statement:
I enjoy painting portraits because I have always been interested in the relationship between inner identity and outward expression. I’ve gone from telling narrative stories by using rich, saturated colors and vibrant patterns, to using isolated instances of color with a goal of getting closer to what really makes each face unique. This current series challenged me to isolate the face, use the same set of fundamental facial features, and create a multi-canvas composition where the similarities in each different individual are what make up the whole picture. Desaturating my subjects gives the viewer a chance to look beyond skin tone for the delicate details in the features that make Blackness beautiful.

Victoria Simmons

Instagram: @victoriadannestudio

Artist Statement:
African American artist, working with all different mediums to help bring awareness of our nation’s current state, especially within the black experience. I have directed murals within the community to help create conversation and safe spaces. I also do smaller scale works for interior viewing. Every piece I make is to help further our state and push the conversation and actions forward.

Jamila Mendez

Instagram: @mimichicboutique

Your Flowers
Mixed Media (acrylic and flexible mirror)
30x40 in
2019
$500

Artist Statement:
A good part of my work explores society’s obsession with conformity and labeling. In scenes of familiar settings, I confront how labels effect how we view subjects. My subject (more often than not) is the melanated female, her conceived role in the world and how she influences it. I tend to paint in objects that may appear random, but are actually symbolic to the topic of the piece. They are an important part of the conversation I want to initiate with the viewer.

In recent years, I have started to merge textiles with digital imagery, and cardstock into my acrylic paintings to create layered collages and multimedia works. My skill set in photography and fashion play an important role on how I decide to set up my compositions and the color palettes I choose to convey the mood of the project.

The everyday intimacies of life connect us all to each other. It’s my hope that viewers will have a chance to ponder the subject of my paintings unencumbered from labels or stereotypes. To choose to see them as multilayered beings, much like my paintings.

Desireé Vaniecia

Instagram: @desireevaniecia

More Than a Woman
Flash vinyl on canvas
2020
$1250

Jessi Jones

Instagram: @jalajones_

Artist Statement:
The interdisciplinary expression of the body as a vessel gives visual rendition to my path of healing. It is a shedding of continual repression of multi-generational trauma and patterns of confinement. It is my truth around redefining my concept of family, ancestry, and history. It also spotlights the animalistic nature of the body - as well as the other realm-like forms of consciousness I may or may not occupy outside of my identity as a person. I am resolving the cycles that have been past down to me, as well as investigating how parts of my essence react to my human experiences, and how my body is a withstanding, yet fragile vessel in this life. These gestures ultimately challenge various boundaries and confines subjected unto humans - particularly black and indigenous non cis men - and contribute to repressed elements of curiosity, joy, pain, odd behavior, power, and destruction in the space around me.

Solomon Mahlatini

Instagram: @solomonmahlatini

SPLENDID ISOLATION
Mixed media (Oil, vellum, gold leaf, charcoal on canvas)
5 x 8 ft
2019
Price upon request

Artist Statement:
Being a Black gay immigrant male from Africa, living in the American diaspora heavily influences my artistic expression, hence why IDENTITY in it’s multi-facets (Sexuality, Religion, Diaspora/Immigration etc...), seems to be a dominant and recurring motif in my bodies of work. I believe life is tragedy but also filled with enough joys to create an equilibrium. In terms of aesthetic, I find myself influenced by the works of Kara Walker, Kehinde Wiley, Francis Bacon and Frida Kahlo. My desired medium is oil/acrylic on non-traditional mediums like leather, metal, fabric, and glass. I work mainly on large life size paintings and installations, with the desire to be bold and make a visually alluring statement to my audience. I am fond of bright colors which further help translate my emotions. I enthuse in being a contemporary voice for LGBT individuals; particularly those from the diaspora. I aim to recreate a fresh narrative of the African in the diaspora, the Black male in America, and the Queer minority in society; to echo our experiences, our challenges, and tribulations.

Molly Sydnor

Instagram: @mollymargaretdesigner

Artist Statement:
Molly Margaret Sydnor (b. 1993) is a Dallas-based multidisciplinary artist with an eye for fiber. She received a BFA in Fiber from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2015. Sydnor creates interactive work through storytelling and the layering of media, ideas and imagery of identity and the body. Experimentation, innovation, and play ground Sydnor’s work in her exploration of the complexities of gender, race, and sexuality. Sydnor is a biracial (black), queer identifying, woman whose self identity heavily inuences her work. She has spent the larger portion of her life explaining who she is. As a white/straight passing queer, biracial (Black) woman of color, she has always been told who she am, who she is not, and the identity she is or is not allowed to have. With attempts to not center herself in the black narrative, she has learned after years of imposter syndrome that blackness is not a monolith. There is no one way to be a queer black woman. The gatekeepers of blackness have decided when to let her in and when to exclude her. Paralleling these experiences, she is also bisexual. Its jarring comparing the two as they interweave within each other. Experiencing horizontal hostility from both groups because she is a square peg and the round hole of what people perceive as gay and black doesn’t look like her. As she has studied and read about other people going through similar life motions and her work is heavily influenced by this research and the way she walks through life. Where she used to code switch, as to assimilate to what society told her she should be, she now owns her identity which is the basis of her work.

Charles Gray

Instagram: @artbycharlesgray

Artist Statement:
Charles Gray is currently working in the DFW area and has perversely studded under international artist such as Josh Goode, Sedrick Huckaby and Hans Molzberger. He is working on multiple series ranging from personal conversation about family and slavery to an empathetic look into the female perspective.

Asia Youngs-Bailey

Instagram: @asiayoungsbailey

Artist Statement:
As an interdisciplinary and socially engaged artist, Asia focuses on her identity - heritage, ancestry, appearance, and mental health through research and her studio practice. She creates conceptual, ethically evaluative, and socially engaged work to educate and spread awareness about the Black experience in the United States through various studio art practices, including photography and sculpture. Meant to provoke emotion by showcasing intense and dark imagery in some cases while also providing subtle imagery with strong conceptions in others, she encourages curiosity in order to start the viewer's journey to be an active and empathetic human being. Her work is both about progressing and processing the knowledge of her cultural heritage, personal histories, and self.