Honoring My Ancestors @ The Morean Arts Center

Risser Gallery, Morean Arts Center

The Risser Gallery is behind the galleries at the front of the MAC. A long, narrow space, bigger than many entire galleries in the area, it's easily overlooked specially if one has just gone through one of the exhibits in front. The Risser is worth a trip of its own. Currently, it is showing Honoring My Ancestors, a project of the Word and Image Arts in Education Partnership funded by the Hough Family Foundation.

Work by Kiana Kumaneng

 Honoring My Ancestors involves area public school students' visual art accompanied by text addressing the visual elements and answering the questions: Who do you honor in your family? How has this person shaped who you are?
 For Kiana Kumaneng, it was her native country, the Philippines. The text read:

"My country that is the Philippine, land of gold and flowers, Even a bird with the freedom to fly, Cage it and it cries, Nest of my tears, what more a country totally exquisite. My desire, to see you completely free."

(From "My Country", written by Jose Corazon de Jesus, in 1929).
 An ethereal image, with a flowered hand and forearm reaching into the middle of the frame. It wears a blue beaded (?) bracelet. A necklace of the same color floats to the left. A cat-like blue creature (or spirit) waves from what looks like an earthenware jar. In the grass, a lotus flower and a drum.

Work by Alexandra Woodard

 Alexandra Woodard was inspired by her Puerto Rican grandparents about whom she wrote: " My grandparents have taught me the importance of hard work and family. I plan to keep these teachings in my family and hopefully they are passed down even after me."

In the foreground is a young woman in native Puerto Rican dress, in front of a typical house  looking wistfully across the water at an American skyline (NYC?). The colors in this work are carefully ad beautifully modulated.


Congratulations to all the young artists, to the Word and Image Art in Education Partnership, the Hough Foundation and the Morean Arts Center for a very good show.

--- Luis