Cultural Exchanges Exhibit at Kramer Gallery (Photos)

Cultural Exchanges art exhibit at the Betty Mae Kramer Gallery and Music Room in the Silver Spring Civic Building is on display Nov. 7 through Feb. 7, 2014. The opening reception is Nov. 7 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. The exhibition includes mixed media installation, paintings and prints by nine Montgomery County artists. Admission to the gallery is free and the public is invited to the opening reception.

The Kramer Gallery is housed on the first floor of the Silver Spring Civic Building, open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Cultural Exchanges celebrates the diversity of Montgomery County and explores artistic cross-fertilization. It brings together nine artists – Fetunwork Amedie, Ann Becker, Sally Brucker, Pierre-Antoine Goho, Winston Harris, Shanye Huang, Pauline Jakosberg, Dawda Oliver, and Linda Slattery-Sherman – whose work refers to people, places, experiences and artistic traditions from across the globe. Some of these artists have lived and worked in Montgomery County their entire lives, while others have traveled here as children or adults, sometimes under duress. As a group, the work shares an abstract language that traverses cultural divides and probes themes of memory, loss, identity, and encounter.

The curator of the exhibit, Dr. Michele Cohen describes Cultural Exchanges:

This exhibition allows us to showcase a wide array of underexposed artists from diverse cultural backgrounds who are based in Montgomery County, and to explore artistic commonalities as well as differences. In an increasingly global culture, where the internet and travel link people across oceans and time zones, contemporary art has expanded its reach.”

Cultural Exchanges reprises part of the mixed-media installation, “The Listening Room,” curated by participating artist, Sally Brucker, which began as a way to connect recent refugees and immigrants with local artists through visual art, storytelling, and poetry. Some of these storytellers, such as Ethiopian-born Fetunwork Amedie and Dawda Oliver of The Gambia, are represented in this exhibition with their own art. Ann Becker’s poetry draws parallels between her family history and the experiences of recent arrivals and print-maker Pauline Jakobsberg layers images and text to capture sequences of memories.

Pierre-Antoine Goho uses gourds and shells to evoke his native Cote d’Ivoire. Internationally recognized Chinese-born artist Shanye Huang fuses Chinese calligraphy and folk arts with gestural painting in vivid colors. His large canvases combine pictogram-like silhouettes with patterns and a psychedelic palette. Linda Slattery-Sherman responds to foreign travel in Peru with a mélange of symbols, and Winston
Harris offers his “American Made Series,” a group of prints that investigate cultural identity, cultural stereotypes, and the hybridization of American culture.

Works by Shanye Huang, Pauline Jakosberg and Winston Harris