Join us on Friday, May 5th at 6:30 for an artist talk with Devin N Morris about his solo exhibition In A Dignified Fashion, moderated by Baltimore's own, Jeffrey Kent.

For more than a decade, Kent founded and directed Sub-Basement Artist Studios: a 13,000 sq. ft. underground, artist studios and gallery space located in downtown Baltimore (Best Gallery, City Paper 2005). Kent was awarded Best Visual Artist by Baltimore’s City Paper 2008 and featured in Baltimore’s 2008 Top Ten Artist list by the Examiner. He currently runs his live/work space in Station North, The One Twenty.

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There will be extended viewing hours for In A Dignified Fashion!
May 3rd, 4th, and 5th 1-5pm.
Last day to see the exhibition will be Saturday, May 6th 1-5pm
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In A Dignified Fashion, a solo exhibition of recent work by Devin N. Morris. Join us on April 8th for the opening reception as well as a few readings by Devin N. Morris.

In A Dignified Fashion explores how experiences materialize in the intermediary ephemeral space that exists between a dream and a memory. A memory bank, or life archive, stores impressions left by past experiences. These impressions, like dreams, weave themselves to past physical experiences that alter our perceptions of reality itself. In this body of work, Morris uses various mediums to subvert value systems found in American life. In particular, he abstractly depicts the intersections of consumerism, queer identity, family ties, and urban geographies found in the American Black experience. These works are filled with a children’s book-like joy and look to break commercial, sexual, and imaginary desires down to facets of visual stimulations that question the validity of our reality.

As an extension of this exhibition, Morris will curate a zine library with titles by various artists and zine makers. Eighteen collaged cover variations of Morris’ book, “Baltimore Boy,” will be exhibited, with copies available for browsing and purchase in the library.

Biography:

Devin N. Morris is a Baltimore born, Brooklyn based artist who is interested in abstracting American life and subverting traditional value systems through the exploration of racial and sexual identity in mixed media paintings, photographs, writings and video. His works prioritize displays of personal innocence and acts of kindness within surreal landscapes and elaborate draped environments that reimagine the social boundaries imposed on male interactions, platonic and otherwise. The use of gestural kindnesses between real and imagined characters are inspired by his various experiences growing as a black boy in Baltimore, MD and his later experiences navigating the world as a black queer man. Memory subconsciously roots itself in the use of familiar household materials & fabrics, while symbolically he arranges it. Looking to buoy his new realities in a permanent real space, Morris posits his reimagined societies as a prehistory to futures that are impossible to imagine.

Morris is also the editor of the great collaborative effort 3 Dot Zine, which is an annual publication that celebrates the futurity of minorities, in addition to serving as a forum for invited artists to center and elaborate on marginalized concerns. He has exhibited in America and Brazil, with short stories and visual works also appearing in NYU’s ISO Magazine, Nii Journal (London), Picture Newspaper and Packet Bi-Weekly Zine amongst others. He recently hosted the first Brown Paper Zine & Small Press Fair for Black & PoC Artists at MoCADA Museum in Brooklyn, NY in January, and, in collaboration with KAHLON, The Agency, will host the second iteration in Baltimore, MD this April. He will release the third issue of 3 Dot Zine in Summer 2017.

www.devinnmorris.com
Instagram: @devinnmorris