Opening Reception Alexis Pye (2022/2023 Artist Studio Program Exhibition) & Tay Butler (The Sankofa Project curated by Tierney Malone)

Alexis Pye: You really livin: A world that was always full of yellow sun, green trees, a blue sea and black people
John M. O’Quinn Gallery

In You really livin: A world that was always full of yellow sun, green trees, a blue sea and black people, Alexis Pye presents a series of paintings in John M. O’Quinn Gallery. These works reflect on people from her community, using lush greenery in place of relationship and gender, as informed by Jamaica Kincaid’s writing in On the Necessity of Gardening: An of Art, Botany and Cultivation (Valiz 2021).

For more information, click here.

In recent years, ASP has had one group show in John M. O’Quinn Gallery. This coming spring, we are looking to shake it up with individual shorter exhibitions. The nine-month Artist Studio Program supports three artists annually with an honorarium, project grant, studio space, and curatorial support, culminating with an exhibition of the artists’ new works.

Tay Butler: Contest
The Sankofa Project curated by Tierney Malone
Main Street Windows & Grace R. Cavnar Gallery

Derived from the Ghanaian word “sankofa,” meaning “one must acknowledge the past in order to move forward,” The Sankofa Project is a multi-year curatorial project examining the historical events leading up to our current moment of social unrest and racial reckoning. Artwork curated by Tierney Malone is presented on Lawndale’s east-facing windows off of Main Street and accompanied by programming to inspire dialogue within our community.

Tay Butler is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Houston, TX. He received his BFA in Photography and Digital Media from the University of Houston and recently completed his MFA in the University of Arkansas’ Photography program. After retiring from the US Army and abandoning a middle-class engineering career to search for purpose, Tay reignited a rich appreciation for Black history and a deep obsession with the Black archive. Using past and present images to create a historically-layered body of work, Tay reorients cultural material from the ever-growing Black experience.

For more information, click here.