Experience Artscape on campus with Center for the Arts Gallery show

By Rebecca Kirkman on July 16, 2019

In an effort to extend Artscape before, during and after the festival weekend and outside of downtown, the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts highlights 10 gallery shows in the greater Baltimore area as part of its Artscape Gallery Network.

At the only participating location in Towson, visitors to TU’s Center for the Arts Gallery will discover work by more than two dozen local artists in “Where Have We Been,” on view through August 10.

Centering on the concept of identity, the show highlights some of the best work from the hundreds of applicants to the 2019 Janet & Walter Sondheim Prize, including prize winner Akea Brionne Brown and finalists Schroeder Cherry, Jackie María Milad ’05 and Stephanie Williams.

While past shows have focused on the greater Artscape festival theme, this year’s event didn’t have one. “So we decided we’re just going to let the work speak to us,” says Erin Lehman, gallery director, who put together the show with J. Susan Isaacs, gallery curator. “We saw a lot of work that focused on identity, issues surrounding what it means to be part of American history, and the legacy of that.”

Lehman says the concept of identity came about organically as she and Isaacs were going through the Sondheim submissions together and selecting pieces to include in TU’s show. The diverse group includes a mix of well-established, mid-career and up-and-coming artists, all with ties to the greater Baltimore area.

“In this show it was important to us to have a wide range of ideas of identity in America and what it means to be a part of that,” Lehman says.

The show includes works that relate to identity in ways both personal and universal. Schroeder Cherry’s Barber Shop Series, works made of acrylic with objects on wood, portray the relationship between African American men and their barbers, while Nora Howell’s “Self-Portrait,” made of woven cotton, cord, and broken pieces of stoneware, depict the artist’s stretch-marks.

The show was designed by Michael Bouyoucas, gallery technician in the Department of Art and Design, Art History, Art Education. “He did a wonderful job laying out the show, and he came up with some really nice relationships between the works visually,” Lehman adds.

“Where Have We Been” is free and open to the public Tuesday – Saturday from 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. through August 10.

The full list of exhibiting artists includes Lauren Adams, Taylor Andrews, Akea Brionne Brown, Schroeder Cherry, Anna U. Davis, Nicole Dyer, Justyne Fischer, Camila Franco Ribeiro Gomide, Amy Lynn Helminiak, LaToya Hobbs, Nora Howell, Nate Larson, Lindsay Cameron MacCuaig, Sharon Pierce McCullough, Jackie María Milad ’05, Lavely Miller-Kershman, Margaret Murphy ’90, Katie O’Keefe, Gina Gwen Palacios, Jamaal Peterman, Scott Ponemone, Beverly Ress, Haley Sanborn, McKinley Wallace III, Stephanie Williams and Curtis Woody.

This story is one of several related to President Kim Schatzel’s priorities for Towson University: TU Matters to Maryland.