DES MOINES, IOWA – As a local custom frame retailer and art gallery, The Great Frame Up in West Des Moines enjoys supporting the visual arts. This month we introduce readers to Jamaican visual artist, Ebony Patterson of Chicago. We encourage readers to visit the Des Moines Art Center and experience the impactful exhibit: “BLACK STORIES” currently on display until January 17, 2021. Ebony Patterson’s artwork is featured in the exhibit. Ebony G. Patterson (born 1981, Kingston, Jamaica) is a Jamaican-born visual artist and educator. She is known for her large and colorful tapestries created of various materials such as, glitter, sequins, fabric, toys, beads, faux flowers, jewelry and other embellishments, her “Gangstas for Life series” of dancehall portraits, and her garden-inspired installations. She has taught at the University of Virginia, Edna Manley College School of Visual and Performing Arts and is a tenured Associate Professor in Painting and Mixed Media at the University of Kentucky. Her work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Jamaica, the United States, and abroad. Early life and education Patterson was born in 1981, Kingston, Jamaica. She studied painting at Edna Manley College of Visual and Performing Arts in Kingston, Jamaica and graduated in 2004. Patterson received an MFA degree in 2006 in printmaking and drawing from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. Patterson’s early work often revolves around questions of identity and the body, and takes the form of mixed media paintings, drawings, and collages, most of them on paper. Photography, found objects, installation and performance have recently become increasingly important in her practice. Early work was primarily concerned with the female body as object. Her Venus Investigations objectified the female torso, headless and anonymous, and explored the relationship between the ample-bodied “Venus” or female goddess images of prehistoric times and contemporary female self-images and beauty ideals. Subsequent works more provocatively focused on the vagina as an object and, by implication, examined the taboos that surround this body part and its functions within Jamaican culture.
11 Publizr Home