BmoreArt’s Picks: Feburay 13-19
This Week: Elena Johnston (1985-2023) at Current Space, Maryland Arts Day, Paul Rucker at UMBC, strikeWare reception at Julio Fine Arts, Elizabeth Talford Scott at The Peale and The Walters, ‘The Sound She Saw’ documentary screening at the Portrait Gallery, I ❤️ City Songs karaoke at Peabody Heights, Sisters Freehold presents: Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea at The Peale, Rebecca Strzelec opening reception at Baltimore Jewelry Center, Nicole Clark opening at Night Owl Gallery, free admission at Maryland Center for History and Culture for Tom Miller Day, and MICATalks with Ashley Lian, Morel Doucet, and KT Marrinan — PLUS Asia North 2024 Call for Entries and more featured opportunities!
BmoreArt’s Picks presents the best weekly art openings, events, and performances happening in Baltimore and surrounding areas. For a more comprehensive perspective, check the BmoreArt Calendar page, which includes ongoing exhibits and performances, and is updated on a daily basis.
To submit your calendar event, email us at events@bmoreart.com!
Elena Johnston, 1985-2023
ongoing through February 17
@ Current Space
Works by prolific Baltimore artist, Elena Johnston (1985-2023) will remain on view at Current Space through February 17th, 2024. Gallery hours are Saturdays from 1-5pm, or by appointment.
Whether or not you knew Elena, we hope you’ll come to see her work in the gallery. She was a talented and influential artist and so many details of her work can only be fully appreciated in person.
In 2022, Current Space showed a solo exhibition of Elena’s works Mood Ring. During the artist talk, she spoke about her work:
“The past few years have seen a lot of growth and change in my artistic practice and my personal life. These paintings are relics of a time when I lived in a liminal space. These types of spaces which bring us out of the past and into an uncertain future are an invitation to give ourselves over to something larger than ourselves. Sometimes this experience can be murky and uncomfortable. This process isn’t always pretty but that’s ok. I think the paintings are beautiful, but beauty can be rife with pain and the substance of transformation. I sometimes think they are ugly because I put so much emotion into them. Like looking at my high school diary.”
The paintings in the gallery now includes some work from that time, as well as older works and works produced very recently, before her untimely death.
Donations in Elena’s memory can be made to the Elena Johnston Memorial Scholarship Fund, which will support the academic aspirations of a student in Maryland who is pursuing an education in the arts through an accredited 2- or 4-year degree program.
You can read memories of Elena, compiled in BmoreArt here:
In Memoriam: Elena Johnston
We love you Elena.
Maryland Arts Day
Tuesday, February 13 :: 8am-2pm
posted by Maryland Citizens for the Arts
Maryland Arts Day Is Back!
We invite you to Maryland Arts Day 2024. One Voice for all the Arts in Maryland!
Tuesday, February 13, 2024 | 8:00 AM EST to 2:00 PM EST
What’s the best investment an artist can make? Investment in self and others. Maryland Arts Day combines the two and adds your local governmental representative.
Registration starts December 27th and early bird tickets are available. Please mark your calendars now! Visit mdarts.org to learn more.
Art Research Residency: Paul Rucker
Tuesday, February 13 :: 5:30-6:30pm
@ UMBC
Join artists Paul Rucker (artist in residence at the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture) and Kim Rice in a public discussion about their research into the history of urban redlining. Rucker and Rice will discuss a project-in-process focused on discriminatory real estate practices and the power of art to change spatial injustice.
Paul Rucker is a multimedia visual artist, composer, and musician. His practice often integrates live performance, original musical compositions, and visual art installation. For over two decades, Rucker has used his own brand of art making as a social practice, which illuminates the legacy of enslavement and its relationship to the U.S. prison industrial complex. An avid collector of artifacts and archives, Rucker holds more than 15,000 pieces about the history of the United States. Items that address false narratives of U.S. history and the strategic withholding of historical events are used as a tool of “demonization for colonization.” His research visit to Baltimore will focus on Baltimore County and the history of “coordinated exclusion.”
The Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture hosts an exploratory research residency that allows artists and interdisciplinary collaborators to take advantage of scholarly resources and to build partnerships at UMBC and in the Baltimore region. Artists In Residence (AIRs) are invited to pursue open-ended outcomes, and their engagements may develop into workshops, artworks, or other future projects. Among the artists the CADVC welcomes this season is Paul Rucker.
For additional information, please visit the CADVC’s page on Artist Research Residencies.
Admission is free, but space is limited. Please rsvp here to reserve a space.
Read more of this week’s picks at BmoreArt.
