This exhibit brings together three artists who have connected online during the COVID-19 Pandemic. This installation is comprised of work from Halcyon, Patti Kilroy and Axis Gallery member, Tavarus Blackmon.
Through expressive works on canvas, conceptual painting in the expanded field and sound art work, this experience is influenced by Art History and the use of the floral, still life or dry flowers, in art. From what was a formal exercise in representation emerges a contemporary exhibition of active picture planes, playful, non-paintings and expressive sound. What does such an image mean in our culture today, gripped by a deadly virus and demands for social justice? Flor Mort, is concerned with presence, immediacy and the act of play. And, how we may be better to observe the stillness we can inhabit through a practice and the lived experience.
Tavarus Blackmon
Tavarus Blackmon, also known by the Anglo-Saxon, Blackmonster, is a devoted father and partner with three children in the City of Trees, Sacramento, California. He earned his MFA as Provost Fellow at the University of California Davis and his MA in Studio Art at CSU, Sacramento. He has been under Fellowship at the Headlands Center for the Arts and is the recent Parent Artist Fellow at the Kala Art Institute. His is the recipient of the 2020-2021 Kala Art Institute Fellowship and the Curatorial Fellowship at Root Division. His practice is interdisciplinary and intermedium.
His work has appeared in Susurrus, Calaveras Station, The Suisun Valley Review, Sacramento City Exchange, Instagram; he has contributed to The Sacramento News and Review: Arts and Culture, Reverb, Voices against mass incarceration, CURA, Literary Magazine of Art and Action, Fordham University, IO Literary Journal and Brushfire Journal, Edition 72, vol. 2, University of Nevada, Reno. He has exhibited in San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Mexico City and Berlin. Tavarus Blackmon has curated panel discussions, presentations and exhibitions, at Beatnik Gallery, The Golden One Center’s digital media displays, Axis Gallery, the Master of Art in Studio Art Thesis Exhibition, Critical Response at CSU, Sacramento and is founder and webmaster of Art Music Lit Space, an online gallery presenting virtual exhibitions. He is an artist member at Axis Gallery, Sacramento, as well as Vice President of the Cooperative. He also serves on the Marketing and eCommerce committees.
He has developed and published work for the web including the sites Tavarus Blackmon Art, Awedio Codex and Black Monster Night Light. His site, BlackmonsteReview hosts his thesis, The Politics of the Cartoon and Contemporary Art. Additional and substantive video and audio can be found under the profiles Tavarus Blackmon and Black Audio Monster on Vimeo and Soundcloud, respectively.
Patti Kilroy
Pattie Kilroy is praised for her “intensely focused” playing by The New York Times, violinist, pedagogue, and recording artist Patti Kilroy is a uniquely modern-minded musician, most known for both giving the world-premiere to over 100 works, with a particular focus on looping, live processing electronics, and prepared violin. Based in Los Angeles, she is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Music at California State University, Los Angeles where she teaches about stringed instrument performance and education. Patti maintains an active life as a performer and sound artist performing music of a wide range of styles. To learn more about her career engagements or research interests, visit pattikilroy.com.
Patti Kilroy’s ambient works will build on and enter in dialogue with works by Tavarus Blackmon and Halcyon in Flor Mort. Any track can be paired with any painting, creating a different experience for every viewer.
Halcyon Clay
Halcyon Clay is an up and coming twenty one year old Sacramento, CA based Artist. He’s been making art for a little under two years. He has created a collection of over a thousand pieces of work and is only getting better. At this stage of his young career, the only thing that limits his output of work are his resources as he works out of his apartment. As Clay states “Money is sparse. I am living the starving artist stereotype, pretty well.” Halcyon is self taught and constantly paints intuitively whatever is in his head. As he puts it “I have an addiction: a mental, physical, connection with my work.” Making art is all he does, he knows and is his existence.
https://www.instagram.com/1.23four/
