Recent works by Lester Merriweather
Opening: Friday, Feb. 15, 6-8 pm
On view: February 15-March 10
Artist bio:
Lester Julian Merriweather (b.1978) is a Memphis-based visual artist. He attended the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture. He holds an MFA from Memphis College of Art and a BA from Jackson State University.
Merriweather has exhibited extensively throughout the U.S. at various venues such as the Studio Museum in Harlem, NYC, Diverseworks in Houston, the Contemporary in Atlanta, and Stella Jones Gallery in New Orleans. He has also exhibited abroad at the Zacheta National Gallery in Warsaw, Poland. He has exhibited locally at Powerhouse Memphis, The Brooks Museum of Art, The Dixon Gallery, Crosstown Arts and The CMPLX.
Merriweather served as the Curatorial Director at the University of Memphis for the Jones Gallery and the Martha & Robert Fogelman Galleries of Contemporary Art for six years. He served on the Board of Directors for Number, Inc. Independent Journal for the Arts where he created the Art of the South Series. He participated in the Collabortory Memphis project. He was also a founding member of the ArtsMemphis Artist Advisory Council and the artsAccelerator Grant Panel Program. Complex Magazine named him one of Fifteen Young Black Artists Making Waves in the Artworld.
He currently serves as the Curatorial Consultant for The PPF Art Collection. He is on advisory panels for the CLTV and LocateArts. Merriweather serves as Principal of LJM Studio Memphis.
Artist statement:
MANE-MADE (CURIOSITIES)
Rare Black Narratives.
We forget they’re human (The Consumptives).
Exaltations + Exactions
Ideas Relevant to Real People
(It is Night For Now).
(Photo)Souvenirs
(To) Love Me Like They Love
Or to take away in remembrance
The Evening Standard
On Everything.
They Have Taken Everything.
#BetterGardensAndJungles
+
The Esteemed Desert
MOVING THE TRUTH INTO POWER.
A Pronounced Event in a Fragile Moment.
Interruptions:
You’ve Been Here Before
We’ve Been Here Before
How Different Things Would Have Been
No Sympathy for Kings
Move up further and further
Have less people to talk to
Less Communication
About that Action
No two days are alike.
Angels Avoiding Sleep
INTERIORS DEVOID OF RACE
#BetterGardensAndJungles
Interiors Devoid of Race
The People’s Republic of Memphis
On Occasion:
The failures of revolution and the inherent investigation of the colonial sublime
To then preserve this land;
That other sublime.
Arrows Fly (After Words Fail)
Here Am I
Dysmorphic
Everything happens exactly as it should.
(Exceptions)
Just On The Other Side
Always like it ever Was
Still Unwelcome
I am in search of I examine the connection(s) between colonialism and modern-day capitalism throughout visual culture(s).
