Substantiation of the Spiritual: The Found Objects of Grace Williams

January 31, 2022 by Mariamma Kambon

Hers is an art practice built out of memory embedded deep within her. She transforms Harlem’s residuum – everything from discarded toys and furniture to the guts of renovated buildings – into stirring, tactile chronicles of the events and personalities that have marked her life.

Categories: Personalities, Uncategorized • Tags: African Diaspora, altars, artifacts, artist, Barack Obama, Betty Shabazz, Bob Macbeth, Caribbean Diaspora, Ed Bullins, flags, found objects, Grace Williams, Harlem, immigrant, Jamaica, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Mariamma Kambon, mosaics, New York, Ntozake Shange, photography, recycling, Sculpture, Trinidad and Tobago, vessels

Journey of a Soul: The Life and Work of Betty Blayton Taylor

February 6, 2017 by Mariamma Kambon

“I think that every child should have an opportunity to explore the arts, just like they have an opportunity to learn how to write and to count. A youngster who has had exposure to the arts is a youngster who is going to be more creative, more capable of learning; will have more enthusiasm for learning and particularly, will be in a position to explore potential, as opposed to the rote learning that goes into A-B-C. If you allow a […]

Categories: Personalities, Uncategorized • Tags: all is one, Alleyne Houser Blayton, Arnold Prince, art, artist, artist-in-residence, Barbara Blayton Richardson, Betty Blayton, Betty Blayton Taylor, Bruton Heights, Buddhism, Charlotte Amalie, Charlotte Hawkins Brown, Children's Art Carnival, creative, culture, Dr. James Blayton, family, Film, Harlem, Harlem Textile Works, Jean-Michel Basquiat, LeRoy Clarke, Mariamma Kambon, meditation, Michael Kelly Williams, New York City, North Carolina, Omar Blayton, painter, painting, Palmer Memorial Institute, photography, play, portraits, sculptor, Sedalia, self-reflective, St. Thomas, studio museum of harlem, The Bronx, Trinidad and Tobago, Virginia, Williamsburg, Zevilla Preston Jackson

“Everyone Breaks”: Tanda Francis

May 5, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

In this life, everyone breaks. As individuals, we are shattered by disappointments. We are knocked to our knees by the share force of life – that balance of negative and positive that ensures that one day, each of us will face the unthinkable. As a people, we have been scattered. A rich and eclectic Diaspora has been born of our perpetual, migratory state. Much of the journey has been marked by pain and loss. Yet, as individuals, we persevere. As […]

Categories: Personalities, Sculpture, Uncategorized • Tags: African Diaspora, art, artist, beauty, Benin, Benin Bronze, Benin head, brooklyn, concrete, Everyone Breaks, fabrication, gold, healing, Ife, Ife sculptures, Jamaica, kintsugi, kintsukoroi, luz de tu sonrisa, luzdetusonrisa, Mariamma Kambon, mending, New York, photography, public art, resiliance, Riverside Park, sculptor, Sculpture, steel, Tanda Francis, visual artist, visual arts

David Hammons/ Obeah Man

March 23, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

The art of David Hammons usually beckons to me from wherever it is perched within a group show. How can someone who uses such a myriad of methods and media have a voice so distinct amid the ambitious cacophony of contemporary art? It is the obeah in the thing – the spirit of the miraculous and the rebellious. It is the profundity revealed in the quotidian that allows his voice to rise above the rest. Obeah is black magic some […]

Categories: Exhibition, Uncategorized • Tags: african amerian, African American, african art, artist, bird, black magic, boukman, champ, David Hammons, dreadlocks, Exhibition, fine art, five decades, fur coat, Harlem, human hair, installation, Kongo, mal yeux, malcolm x blvd, maljo, Mariamma Kambon, mass incarceration, mau mau, mnuchin gallery, New York, nkisi, Obeah, obeah man, okomfo anokye, orange is the new black, photography, power figure, rebellion, resistance, slavery, snowball, standing room only, tribal art, Trinidad and Tobago, visual arts

Chiharu Shiota – Keys in Venice and New York

March 5, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

Encountering Chiharu Shiota’s work at the Venice Biennale 2015 was indeed like stumbling upon a familiar tongue in a foreign land. Yet the lingua had been extrapolated into such sublime poetry that it was rendered almost completely new to me. In late 2013 I became aware of mass incarceration, a system of control and suppression unique to the United States, not only in its stupendous volume but in its targeting of the historically disenfranchised and underprivileged segments of the society. […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: A Key in the Hand, artist, Biennale 2015, caribbean, Chiharu Shiota, Exhibition, fine art, installation, italy, Japan, Japan Pavilion, Japanese artist, keys, loss, Mariamma Kambon, mass incarceration, memories, memory, New York, photography, Piers 42/44, red yarn, resistance, State of Being, The Armory, The Armory Show 2016, Trinidad and Tobago, venice, Venice Biennale, Venizia, wooden boat