Baltimore – Crosstown Arts

Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10 am – 6 pm

Performance at Rock For Love: Friday, September, 4, 8:30 pm
Artist Talk: Thursday, September 10, 7:30 pm

“A riot is the language of the unheard.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

In a Violent Way is a multimedia installation by Lawrence Matthews III that incorporates a wide array of visual and audio elements, from oil painting and collage to tube televisions and archival video footage. To accompany the installation, Matthews will perform his own original songs at the close of the show’s reception. The exhibition’s title is a nod to the seminal, genre-bending 1969 Miles Davis recording, In a Silent Way, which inspired and guided Matthews while he created this body of work.

The imagery of In a Violent Way is sourced from or informed by mass media portrayals of events past and present in four primary cities: Baltimore, Los Angeles, St. Louis and Memphis, each with its own history of entrenched racial discrimination and economic disparity disproportionately affecting people of color. Mixed media works depicting the demonstrations and unrest of the 1960’s tellingly reside alongside banks of television sets showing video footage of more recent discord, like the 1992 L.A. Riots. These scenes — differing in timeline, though not in tenor — convey generations of frustration caused by institutionalized oppression, angry citizens crying out against abuses at the hands of authority, and the ambivalent eye of the media that only captures part of the story.

“My work does not judge the morality of the individuals partaking in the riots, only the institutions that create the circumstances where riots are the only voice.” – Lawrence Matthews III

Lawrence Matthews III was born in Memphis, TN, into a family who encouraged him to be an artist from a young age. He received his BFA from the University of Memphis and was awarded “Best of Show” in the University’s 31st Annual Juried Student Exhibition. Young, but already prolific, Matthews is an emerging artist who has shown work in several solo and group shows across Memphis, including Doomed to Repeat at Circuitous Succession Gallery (2015), Cigar Box Show at Glitch Gallery (2014), and Price Is Right at David Lusk Gallery (2014).

Matthews works in a wide variety of media, including oil paint, collage, photography, sculpture, music and film, and combines post-modern, Pop Art and contemporary influences to narrate his perspective as an African descendant living in America.

Crosstown Arts is pleased to present Bawlmer, a group exhibition of new work by Baltimore-based artists organized Dwayne Butcher. Butcher is an artist, designer, and curator who moved from Memphis to Baltimore in 2013. Artists he has chosen for this exhibition include Colin Alexander, Kyle Bauer, Amy Hughes Braden, Dave Eassa, Cara Ober and Paul Shortt. Through painting, sculpture, and a prevailing sense of humor, the exhibition aims to make connections between Memphis and Baltimore and their respective creative landscapes.

Curator’s Statement:

‘In my short time in Baltimore, I have noticed many similarities between this city and Memphis. Each is roughly the same size in area and population, and each is similar in its racial, political, and socioeconomic makeup. They both have the “grit and grind” that blue-collar, middle-class urban areas have to have. This “grit and grind” is the prefect incubator for creativity, which makes “Bawlmer,” as enunciated in the local dialect, seem like home to me.

The six artists included in this exhibition approach their work with a sense of humor. They poke fun at normal conventions of class and gender, recall the fads of their youth, enjoy the frivolity of today, break down shapes into the purest of forms, and call into question the superiority of the art world’s “big swinging dicks.”

Oh, the Baltimorons love their crabs as much as Memphians love their BBQ. So there is that. And then there is the Old Bay.’

-Dwayne Butcher

Artist information:

Curator’s biography:

Originally from Memphis, TN, Dwayne Butcher is an artist, designer, and curator living in Baltimore. He received his MFA from the Memphis College of Art in 2008. While at MCA, he developed a deep interest in the integration of Digital Media expression with traditional art forms. His work wittily comments on his life as a citizen of the American South, often around issues of gender identity. His work has increasingly been shown in international exhibitions in the last two years in locations such as Belfast, Northern Ireland, Chongqing, China, Paris France, Berlin, Germany, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, New York City and Los Angeles. He has been featured in articles focusing on his work and community art projects for the New York Times, The Washington Post, Hyperallergic, Art21, and Big, Red and Shiny. When Dwayne is not working on all of the above things, he maintains an art blog focusing on the visual arts of Baltimore and the surrounding area. He enjoys watching short animations and experimental films. He is one of the world’s greatest Risk players and has won awards for his chicken wings. Dwayne also spends a lot of time with his wife taking pictures of their two worthless cats. Oh. He also likes beer.

-From http://dwaynebutcher.squarespace.com/info/

Cover image: Kyle Bauer, detail