The South Dallas Cultural Center (SDCC), located at 3400 South Fitzhugh Avenue in Dallas, has announced plans to host several events for residents in the DFW area throughout the holiday season.
According to the SDCC press release, a new art exhibition featuring the works of artist Aimee M. Everett will open on December 10 at 5:00 pm and will be available for viewing through January 29.
The SDCC will showcase two of Everett’s collections: Paying Reverence to the Altar of Memories and Seeing Ghosts: Revisited.
Food trucks will be available on the opening night of the exhibit. The evening of “Art, Eats, and Beats” continues with a musical performance from SoFar Sounds at the Music Lounge.
The performance begins at 7:30 pm, and tickets are available for purchase online for twenty-two dollars. Click here to purchase tickets.
Everett’s exhibition is free and open to the public. Visit the SDCS website to book an appointment and read the Health and Safety guidelines.
Everett, who is featured on Saatchi Arts’ online gallery list of “35 Rising Stars Under 35”, is from New Orleans but now lives and creates in Austin, Texas. She describes her work as “expressive minimalism,” using texture, lines, and atmospheric colors.
Everett shares, “I am interested in exploring and asking the question, ‘What lingers in the silences we hold between each spoken word?’ I believe this is where our true emotions live.”
Her exhibition Paying Reverence to the Altar of Memories focuses on hidden memories ‘that have recently demanded her attention.’ Everett created the pieces to tackle the “memories that have been difficult and traumatic to confront and honoring those that keep hope as a constant.” She views art as a way to release those hidden dark memories that lurk in the mind.
Everett’s second gallery featured at the SDCC, Seeing Ghosts: Revisited, was inspired by the stories and colors of New Orleans. The collection prominently features newsprint and the color known as “Haint Blue.”
She explains on her website that this particular shade of blue is often found on the doors and porch ceilings of many homes in New Orleans, and newsprint can be found tacked to walls and doors.
“It is believed that the use of Haint Blue and any type of written word, can be used to ward off evil spirits,” Everett’s website explains. Haint Blue is thought to confuse spirits into thinking they are close to either the sky or water, while printed words, such as on newsprint, force “the evil spirits to read all words before they can do harm.”
Seeing Ghosts: Revisited is made of collages, birchwood, canvas, newspaper, acrylic paint, nylon, polyester, thread, wire, Ferro Prussiate, and Arches Cold Pressed Paper.
A recorded interview with Artist Jarrad Hamilton is currently featured on SDCC’s Instagram page. Listeners can “hear what he has to share about his creative process, what color inspires him the most, and life advice for other Black male artists,” the press release states.
According to Hamilton’s website, he is a contemporary artist raised in Augusta, Georgia, one of fourteen siblings. He is a U.S. Army veteran who creates his art “expressing the resilience and beauty that exist with pain and struggle.”
Hamilton creates his artwork based on his dreams, imagination, and experiences. He uses acrylic paint to create vibrant colors and symbols. “I hope that my art can help other people heal mentally and spiritually and am grateful for the ability to create art and for the opportunity to share it with the world,” he said.
To listen to the interview with Hamilton, go to the Instagram page of the South Dallas Cultural Center and click “Artists” in the “story highlight section.”
The City of Dallas Code Compliance and the Office of Arts and Culture has issued a call for female artists as part of their Murals on the Move: Women in Art program. One female artist will be chosen to create a mural “on a roller container.” The container will be used throughout the City of Dallas for “various community clean-up events.”
The City of Dallas Arts and Culture website explains this project is intended to “beautify our neighborhoods” and “celebrate the accomplishments of women in art which transcends over the span of decades.”
The container is twenty feet in length and seven feet tall. The artists selected will receive $3,500 to complete the container mural and $1,500 for supplies.
Proposals for the mural project are being accepted now until January 3, 2022. The panel will review the submissions from January 5 through January 10. The award notification will go to the selected artist on January 12, and the mural completion deadline is set for March 27. Click here to send your proposal.