Inaugural Exhibition
Pre-Renovation Potluck
May 15–June 30, 2021
MARCH is pleased to announce the inaugural exhibition of our new gallery space at 64 Avenue A in New York’s East Village with an installation of self-portraits by sixteen artists with whom we have worked over the years.
Pre-Renovation Potluck unites the works of Hawkins Bolden, Bruce Burris, Thornton Dial, Olive Hayes, Y. Malik Jalal, Leasho Johnson, Claudia Keep, Evelyn Massengill, Guy Mendes, Jiha Moon, Misleidys Francisca Castillo Pedroso, Dianna Settles, Aaron Michael Skolnick, Mary Tillman Smith, Lina Tharsing, and Mose Tolliver, around the metaphorical table of our new brick-and-mortar location before the architects and builders have their way… read more
Aaron Michael Skolnick
Summer Song, 2021
Oil on canvas
36 x 30 inches
“Nature is meditation, it is a god for me. It always calls us back one way or another. This past year I have been depicting tender moments from my daily walks in the woods, first in Hudson, New York and now Houston, Texas. I feel as though my paintings and drawings are almost portraits of these flowers and/or landscapes that I come across. Whether it’s hiking in a wooded area, or letting my toes sink in the sand on the beach, I feel the invincibility of being five years old again.”
– Aaron Michael Skolnick
“A dappled canopy splayed out across my suburban Lexington driveway melded by chance with an old growth virgin forest in the Harlan County hills yields a doppelganger by-product of a side-eye, hunting & gathering habit.“
– Guy Mendes
Guy Mendes
Self Portrait – Blanton Woods/Ashland Park, 2017
Gelatin silver print
14 x 14 inches
Jiha Moon
Magic Halmae, 2021
Earthenware, glaze, underglaze, synthetic hair
12 x 13 1/2 x 12 inches
“I want my object to be something supernatural and magical that tells the hybrid stories of my experience in America.”
– Jiha Moon
“My works are informed by the act of touch as a way of challenging the hierarchy of painting. I think of the qualities of charcoal – both the socio-political implications and the persistence of the material – to transform not just the surface of the ground but the environment I work in; it gets on my hands, my clothes, the floor, the walls, and ultimately in my skin.“
– Leasho Johnson
Leasho Johnson
Brother…let strength not kill me, 2021
Charcoal, distemper, watercolor, oil, oil stick, gesso on paper
30 x 22 inches
Thornton Dial
January 20, 2009, 2009
Graphite, pastel, and coffee on paper
47 1/4 x 31 1/2 inches
“I always be looking to the future. I respect the past of life, but I don’t worry too much about it because it’s done passed. The struggles that we all have did, those struggles can teach us how to make improvement for the future. Art is like a bright star up ahead in the darkness of the world. It can lead peoples through the darkness and help them from being afraid of the darkness. Art is a guide for every person who is looking for something. That’s how I can describe myself: Mr. Dial is a man looking for something.”
– Thornton Dial
“I’m interested in making objects and images that exist in a space beyond this antagonism. I attempt to create or contribute to the creation of the space beyond itself – which is an impossibility. I pull references and try to actively participate in the aesthetic traditions of the African diaspora and those of the African continent itself. A mask feels to be an appropriate self-portrait, because I’m at war with the very values and notions of the individual.“
– Y. Malik Jalal
Y. Malik Jalal
Portrait of the Artist as Indignation, 2021
Oak, iron, glass marble, bus token, coyote teeth
19 x 9 x 9 inches
Olive Hayes
My Mind, 2021
Colored pencil on paper
10 x 10 inches
“Panic, passion, and depression are sensations that I experience often; even in my most controlled spaces. As a means to cope and reflect on these emotions, I look at fervor through a humorous lens. I satirize the irony between identifiable and experienced feelings through drawing highly expressive portraits.“
– Olive Hayes
"Smith used her yard as a very personal and private record, a diary of her life, which she presented publicly. She often painted portraits of herself, as well as of her relatives and friends. Elizabeth (Smith’s sister) says, 'She was drawing all of us'."
– William Arnett,
Collector, Scholar, and Founder of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation
Mary Tillman Smith
Untitled (Self-Portrait), 1988
Enamel on wood
24 x 24 inches
Bruce Burris
Here We Are (Self Portrait), 2021
Tin foil, acrylic, glitter, and plastic baubles on canvas
24 x 18 inches
“I have always liked signs. Information. Pamphlets. I like short bursts of colorful information. Bulletin boards. My visual material is often structured as scaffolding supported by language. Writing is the common element in everything I make.“
– Bruce Burris
“I try to approach not so much a factual reality, but rather some sort of truth about an experience or sensation—an emotional realism. I’ve found, somewhat ironically, that the highly personal is also the most universally understood, or rather, felt.“
– Claudia Keep
Claudia Keep
Self-Portrait, Swimming, 2021
Oil on wood panel
16 x 12 inches
Lina Tharsing
Seeing/Dreaming, 2021
Oil on panel
16 x 12 inches
“Many of my dreams in the past year have contained dark water. A water of unfathomable depth, sometimes placid, sometimes filled with ominous waves. I realized recently that the water itself is a mirror to the infinite space of the cosmos and the infinite depth of the subconscious mind.“
– Lina Tharsing
“My paintings materialize ephemeral experiences of joy, potentiality, and friendship in order to reflect on, revisit, and remember them in all their ecstasies and agonies. These images are ways of processing my identities, and celebrating the beauty and uniqueness of the worlds my friends and I construct and inhabit. Inspired equally by actual occurrences and potential arrangements, and combining disparate objects, people, places, and actions from my life, my compositions are collages of moments that take on a richness gesturing beyond the individual emotional and historical resonances of their components – towards all possible arrangements of a life worth living.“
– Dianna Settles
Dianna Settles
Self-Portrait with Longevity, 2020
Acrylic, oil, and colored pencil on wood
30 x 23 3/4 inches
Misleidys Francisca Castillo Pedroso
Untitled, 2015
Gouache on paper
19 1/2 x 13 inches
“Her works form a portrait of repeated, impenetrable stoicism, and you take comfort that this artist has created a set of strange, half-naked bedfellows. In her universe—her unknown interior life—there is no judgment, no gender assignment. Her art is au courant, relevant, poignant, and worthy of being counted.“
– Karen Wong,
Deputy Director of the New Museum in NYC
“We didn’t have much money at all and times were hard, but we were young and it didn’t seem to bother us much. I guess it just seemed like a big adventure.“
– Evelyn Massengill
Evelyn Massengill
Evelyn (Self-Portrait), c. 1930s
Gelatin silver direct positive print
4 x 3 inches
Mose Tolliver
Untitled (Self-Portrait), 1987
Enamel on wood
24.5 x 22.75 inches
“In terms of the art history of our country, I would say in comparing Tolliver’s work to Picasso – Mose’s art is of equal value – you can hang beside a Picasso and you have the same kind of creativity and deep personal vision.“
– Robert Bishop,
Former Director of the American Folk Art Museum
“I started making faces and things out of stuff I found, probably about 1965. One of my nieces said, ‘Put them in your garden to keep the birds out.’ So I guess you can call them things scarecrows.“
– Hawkins Bolden
Pre-Renovation Potluck
May 15–June 30, 2021
MARCH is pleased to announce the inaugural exhibition of our new gallery space at 64 Avenue A in New York’s East Village with an installation of self-portraits by sixteen artists with whom we have worked over the years. Pre-Renovation Potluck unites the works of Hawkins Bolden, Bruce Burris, Thornton Dial, Olive Hayes, Y. Malik Jalal, Leasho Johnson, Claudia Keep, Evelyn Massengill, Guy Mendes, Jiha Moon, Misleidys Francisca Castillo Pedroso, Dianna Settles, Aaron Michael Skolnick, Mary Tillman Smith, Lina Tharsing, and Mose Tolliver, around the metaphorical table of our new brick-and-mortar location before the architects and builders have their way.
American potlucks are notorious for their variety, and this one is no different; the familiar serves to welcome and comfort, the unfamiliar to entice and delight. For our purposes, self-portraits may have a similar effect. Some reveal complex personal histories while others disclose the adventurous spirit of their creator. Occasionally, such a work may convey universal truths using one’s appearance as a point of departure. In this exhibition, an iconic drawing by Thornton Dial, made the day of President Obama’s inauguration and simply titled January 20, 2009, hangs alongside the works of promising young Southern makers Y. Malik Jalal, Jiha Moon, and Dianna Settles. Claudia Keep and Bruce Burris have both chosen to render images of their hands—tools of the trade—while Pedroso’s split figure literally reveals an interior state. Ultimately, this gathering of unlike minds presents an agglomeration of not only people, but stories, experiences, and philosophies.
Pre-Renovation Potluck is a precursor to—and a precedent for—the exhibitions, conversations, publications, and debates to come. Here lie questions of culture, geography, and identity to be posed and pondered, themes that run parallel and concepts that clash. Beyond its sheer breadth, our program and its collaborators are defined by their curiosity, creativity, and passion for trying new things. May this potluck satiate your hunger for the beautiful, the original, and the free; may it remind you of your roots and of your dreams. And may you return, hungry and curious, to witness future projects as they assume form.
Long before the inception of MARCH, founder Phillip March Jones and a troupe of dedicated collaborators began launching projects that pushed the boundaries of traditional creation and curation. Strewn across the American South and expanded to urban and international platforms, these exhibitions connected makers, institutions, collectors, and viewers, united by a common passion for bold and authentic art. Unencumbered by orthodox notions of aesthetics, ability and identity, such projects have showcased pioneering works that expand the boundaries of what art can be. Today, MARCH remains dedicated to magnifying the voices of those remarkable creators.
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Guy Mendes
Self Portrait – Blanton Woods/Ashland Park, 2017
Gelatin silver print
14 x 14 inches
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Bruce Burris
Here We Are (Self Portrait), 2021
Tin foil, acrylic, glitter, and plastic baubles on canvas
24 x 18 inches
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Jiha Moon
Magic Halmae, 2021
Earthenware, glaze, underglaze, synthetic hair
12 x 13 1/2 x 12 inches
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Leasho Johnson
Brother…let strength not kill me, 2021
Charcoal, distemper, watercolor, oil, oil stick, gesso on paper
30 x 22 inches
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Thornton Dial
January 20, 2009, 2009
Graphite, pastel, and coffee on paper
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Y. Malik Jalal
Portrait of the Artist as Indignation, 2021
Oak, iron, glass marble, bus token, coyote teeth
19 x 9 x 9 inches
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Olive Hayes
Self-Portrait, 2021
Graphite on paper
10 x 10 inches
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Mary Tillman Smith
Untitled, 1988
Enamel on corrugated metal
24 x 24 inches
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Claudia Keep
Self-Portrait, Swimming, 2021
Oil on wood panel
16 x 12 inches
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Claudia Keep
Driving Uphill, 2020
Oil on panel
9 x 7 1/4 inches
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Dianna Settles
Self-Portrait with Longevity, 2020
Oil on canvas
30 x 23 3/4 inches
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Misleidys Francisca Castillo Pedroso
Untitled, 2015
Gouache on paper
19 1/2 x 13 inches
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Evelyn Massengill
Evelyn (Self-Portrait), c. 1930s
Gelatin silver direct positive print
4 x 3 inches
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Mose Tolliver
Untitled (Self-Portrait), 1987
Enamel on wood
24.5 x 22.75 inches
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Aaron Michael Skolnick
Summer Song, 2021
Oil on canvas
36 x 30 inches
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Hawkins Bolden
Untitled, c. 1980s
Found-object construction
16 x 12 x 7 inches