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Seitu James Smith in his studio. Photograph courtesy of GYA
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What an insanely jam-packed weekend for visual art. On Friday, Joan Hall's solo show opens at Bruno David, the Contemporary Art Museum-St. Louis unveils four new exhibits (including Jonathan Horowitz’s timely installation, Your Land, My Land: Election ’12), and Craft Alliance's North Grand gallery holds a reception for CLASP, its art-jewelry show. The same night, you could also stop by the Tavern of Fine Arts to see the 18-artist group show WaxCentric, and, provided you could bend the laws of time and space, also catch receptions at Mad Art, the Regional Arts Commission, the Schmidt Art Center, plus opening night of both the Saint Louis Art Fair and Schlafly's Art Outside. Oh, and: White Flag opens its B. Wurtz show on Saturday.
Whew.
Plotting to see even half of these shows might necessitate a giant wall map of St. Louis, markers, and map pins. Before you start plotting your route, set aside a map pin for midtown and Old and New Conjurings at GYA Gallery and Fine Craft Shop, featuring paintings by Seitu James Smith and collages by Zimbabwe Nkenya.
You may have seen Smith's work—he's an accomplished local painter who's had several solo shows. The scale of his canvases ranges from small to enormous, but all of his work vibrates with energy and color. He paints both figurative and abstract works, but those labels break down a little when you get closer to the canvas, and see that, for instance, the huge and luminous portrait of a man (done all in blue) is an image made up of smaller, abstract shapes; his complex, meticulously painted abstracts gesture towards the figurative, and are less like paint splats and color blocks, more like mandalas, or Kandinsky's attempts to evoke the shape of the human soul with line and color.
Earlier this year, we wrote about Nkenya (article here), when he played the Sheldon with musician and puppeteer Glenn "Papa" Wright and Rich O'Donnell of New Music Circle and HEARDing Cats. What made that concert extra newsworthy was that it was the first Nkenya, an accomplished avant-garde jazz musician and multi-instrumentalist, had played since suffering a stroke a few years ago that left him partially paralyzed. Though he is unable to play his standup acoustic bass, he can play the mbira with his right hand. During the course of reporting the story, visiting the house Nkenya shares with his wife, poet and VSA Arts of Missouri founder Deborah Mashibini, we saw Nkenya's beautiful, intricate collages on the walls. Mashibini pointed out each individual photographs and minute drawings, noting how the imagery was inspired by her husband's love of African culture, particularly South African, and music, of course.
"I personally have been collaborating with VSA Missouri. And then Deborah [Mashibini, Nkenya's wife] has been volunteering at GYA. We had a conversation, and she invited me over to see the work, and it was wonderful," says gallery founder Dail Chambers, when asked how the show crystalized. "So, through time, I was also planning for Seitu's exhibition in the fall, but t because it was so close, it made good sense to have them exhibit together. Seitu's an established visual artist, but he's closely related to music, and Zimbabwe isn't a practicing visual artist, so it's a different perspective."
The two artists have also been friends since the 1970s, when both of them counted friendships among members of the Black Artists Group, the groundbreaking multidisciplinary collective that was far ahead of its time not just locally, but nationally.
“Zimbabwe’s inspiration and my inspiration are basically the same," Smith says. "My work is essentially music on canvas.”
Old and New Conjurings opens Friday, September 7, with a reception from from 6:30-9 pm. and remains on view through September 30; see the slideshow below for examples of both artists' work. Recordings of Nkenya's June concert at the Sheldon wlill be available at the reception, as well as his other recordings. Smith's paintings and prints will also be available for sale, along with fine art and craft items. GYA is located at 2700 Locust (two blocks west of Jefferson). Gallery hours are Fridays from 4-7 p.m.,Saturday from 11 a.m.-4 p.m., Sundays from 1-4 p.m., and by appointment. Call 314-995-9570 for more information.
Images courtesy of GYA Community Gallery
