Wednesday, December 14, 2022

Tent of Reams exhibited at Puertas Adentro Artes in Punta Del Este (Manantiales), Uruguay (December 2022 in person!)

In Fall 2022, I participated in my second round of a virtual residency at Mango (Rio) under the direction of the redoubtable Maria Mercedes Aliaga Pueyrredon (we call her Mechi) and a former colleague from Uruguay from my first Mango residency Maria Soldano who arranged the exhibition in Punta Del Este. These Mango residency exhibitions are a challenge since our roster of participations in the residency that engages artists as widely distributed as Abu Dhabi, Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, Texas, NYC and Benares, India. In the first of my Mango residencies in Summer 2020, the group settled on theme of language as a common thread, this time, metamorphosis. Tent of Reams was created as the last work of the 2022 residency that lasted for six works and that culminated in an open studio. I kept the emphasis on language that resulted in pieces after the residencies such as Lee(Amerikkka) and added the indeterminacy of metamorphosis, thus transforming figures, settings, text etc. in a representation of an Occupy protest where an equestrian monument was mounted by protesters and draped with a ‘Tent of Reams’. Txs, Mechi and Maria and all those associated with Punta Del Este Artes and Punta Planos that printed a digital version of Tent of Reams. The exhibition is up until the end of 2022 and can be viewed on a variety of Inst sites.

Monday, November 28, 2022

Puffin Grant Awarded

Thank you to the fine folks at the social justice not for profit Puffin Foundation, who sent an award for the continuation of the Anna Pierrepont Series in November 2022. Receiving an award to continue my practice of investigating the afterlife of public monuments in this extraordinary moment of New American Iconoclasm is so encouraging!

Monday, October 31, 2022

Lee (Amerikkka) featured at SECAC 2022 in Baltimore.



At a panel discussing public art and systematic racism hosted by Jason Brown (UTenn, Knoxville), myself (St.Francis College), Rebecca Hackemann-Bahlman (Kansas State), Billy Friebele (Loyola) and Meredith Drum (remotely from Virginia Tech) presented and discussed with engaged participants, the current state of the monumental landscape.

I traced the Anna Pierrepont Series from its hyperlocal origins in plein-air drawings on paper mostly in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

The series then turned its focus on erasure in pictorial essays and eventually to my current large scale studio works on paper documenting our singular moment of monumental reckoning.

I detailed my increased interest in plein-air works on the wear and inscriptions that emerged as lyrical tracery in numerous works on paper such as
pictures increasingly the absence of the monument to J. Marion Sims (plein-air) from 2018 that like the Sims absence, featured the bases of political and funerary monuments.

This practice enabled me to draw out the red 'AmeriKKKa' from the rest of the numerous markings on the Lee as part of the 2020 protests.

This orchestration enabled the word to speak to the legacy of violence celebrated by the Lee and in equestrian monuments in general.

Since the Lee and its inquisition in Amerikkka are no longer extant, the word testifies about the contemporary speaking back in grief and defiance to the legacy and persistence of injustice so embodied by the enormous and no longer extant Lee. The words 'Amerikkka' being lost along with it.

So what remains is my work on paper Lee(AmeriKKKa) as a totem.

Thanks to Jason, Rebecca, Meredith, Billy, our awesome colleagues at a provocative session and conference.

Monday, April 25, 2022

Works from Anna Pierrepont Series included in 'Who Writes History' at ArtsWestchester until July 2022



Thanks to the curators and installers at ArtsWestchester for featuring works from the Anna Pierrepont Series in 'Who Writes History?'

I include the guest curator, Randy Williams' comments on my work that was installed.

We are confronted with public monuments daily. We view some with committed visions and some with omitted visions. Howard Skrill's plein-air monuments drawing is a record of an aesthetic souvenir altered by public sentiments. His drawing acknowledges both the monument and community members' feelings about the monument. The artist illustrates how the public can create a conversation with public monuments. There is certainly the view that the monument is being defaced, but there is also an argument that the act of public response is a statement of empowerment. Howard Skrill's Plein-Air Drawing of a Monument teeters on ambiguity. He recognizes both the historical object as well as the contemporary response to the historical monument. He offers his viewer a lens through which to view this object from the past in discussion with voices from the present. The contemporary musings by the public have added a new chapter to the story of this monument.

Please click here to see the beautiful catalog

Thursday, January 20, 2022

My A. Jackson Splashed Red receives Mozaik Philanthropy award and exhibition

I am so excited and honored that my image 'A. Jackson Splashed Red' received a monetary award and pending exhibition by the wonderful folks at the Mozaik Philanthropy for their 'Ecosystem X' exhibition.

https://mozaikphilanthropy.org/faa/