JB² : a Jasmine Brown Collaboration

Spaceworks Tacoma presents JB² : a Jasmine Brown Collaboration, featuring artworks by Jasmine Iona Brown & Jazz Brown at the 950 Gallery.

 

JB² : a Jasmine Brown Collaboration

EXHIBIT DURATION
July 11 – Aug 15, 2019

OPENING RECEPTION
July 18, 5 – 9PM

Spaceworks Tacoma presents JB² : a Jasmine Brown Collaboration, featuring artworks by Jasmine Iona Brown & Jazz Brown at the 950 Gallery.

 

Jazz Brown’s Artist Bio:

Jazz Brown is an autodidact who uses acrylic paint to create vivid, expressive compositions. His artistic approach presents intense vibration through contrasting hues, shapes, and textures. He is inspired by both the Minimalism art movement and the Bebop jazz offspring from the 1960s. Brown describes his technique as “consciousnesses on canvas.”

Jazz Brown’s Artist Statement:

Exercising geometric proficiency, I explore the contrast between the eternal nature of reality and the false perception of duality. Using the present moment as a point of reference, I reveal both formlessness as truth and form as a vehicle of awareness to experience the wonder of the infinite.

 

Jasmine Iona Brown’s Artist Statement:

My paintings, photography and illustrations usually focus on the face. I paint portraits, masks and icons or take photographs that highlight individual beings. I’m fascinated with human and animal features. I use facial expressions and words that convey messages, illustrate a stream of thought, or give voice to the private thoughts of marginalized individuals. I incorporate poetry, symbols, or landscapes that represent the persona of the models I have encountered during my travels around the world. I am influenced by the sacred art of several world religions. African masks, Voodoo textiles, Buddhist thangkas, Native American carvings as well as Russian and Ethiopian icons have ceremonial significance and spiritual potency that I strive to embody in my work.

I’ve expanded my studio practice into public art. In 2017, I completed a temporary public art project in West Seattle for the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture. I installed life size aluminum photo decals on bridge pillars and in front of a music studio called, “Black Teen Wearing Hoodie”. I used my teenage son as a model. He’s reading a book or playing an instrument. The series was in remembrance of the 5 year anniversary of Trayvon Martin’s tragic murder and a reminder that black kids in hoodies are just kids. Subsequently, I’ve installed photo murals outside various organizations, including Photo Center Northwest, Africatown, Pratt Art Center, Frye Museum of Art and Amazon headquarters.

As an African American, I am very interested in projects that commemorate the black experience. In 2018, I also won a commission to design the Billy Ray Memorial sculpture inside Tacoma’s new Eastside Community Center. That work will be my first permanent public art sculpture in bronze. It will be installed in October 2019.

Jasmine Iona Brown’s Artist Bio:

Jasmine Iona Brown was born in Indianapolis, Indiana and traveled to five continents before moving to Washington and settling in Tacoma, WA. She earned her B.F.A. in Design at Howard University and her M.A. in International Studies from UCLA. Her graduate study in ancient history and cultures led her to incorporate antique artistic mediums, such as egg tempera, into her artwork. She is fascinated with the human face and the narratives of marginalized people. Her work combines facial expressions, text and cultural symbols to convey political messages, illustrate a stream of thought, or give voice to the private opinions of her portrait subjects. Brown is the recipient of a 2011 & 2017 Puffin Foundation Grant and an Artist Trust GAP Award to paint a series of Byzantine style egg-tempera icons memorializing a few of the many children of color, forgotten by the media, that are lost to violence every year.

In 2017, she also expanded her studio practice into public art. She has shown her temporary public art installation “Black Teen Wearing Hoodie” photo mural series in various locations in Seattle and Tacoma, including Photo Center Northwest, Africatown, Pratt Art Center, Frye Museum of Art, and Amazon headquarters. Her work is in the collections of the Wing Luke Museum, the Trayvon Martin Foundation, and the portable art collections of both Seattle and Tacoma. Her first permanent bronze sculpture will be installed inside the Eastside Community Center in Tacoma this fall.

See.

FREE & OPEN TO PUBLIC

HOURS:
Every Thursday 1-5PM
Third Thursday 1-9PM
Or By Appointment
253-627-2175

ADDRESS:
950 Pacific Ave. Suite 205
Tacoma, WA (entrance on 11th)

www.spaceworkstacoma.com/gallery

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