2016: A Great Start
Feb 19th, 2016 by andreaharris
This year has been filled with exciting exhibitions and opportunities that have offered unique experiences of interfacing my artwork with my other passions: humanitarian and environmental concerns.
I am honored to be involved in a compelling panel discussion: Change Artists – Using the Arts to Leverage Positive Change that will take place at the 2016 United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (UN CSW), Thursday, March 17, 2:30 PM, at the Thai Cultural Center, 310 44th Street, Room 2.
Additional panelists include: Breaking Criminal Traditions (BCT) executive producer/TED speaker Cheryl Jefferson, BCT curator/painter Professor Charles Gniech, Columbia College-Chicago art professor/BCT painter Richard Laurent. The panel will teach participants how to translate the arts into social action, strategies for community engagement, engaging artists, and more based on the BCT model.
Begun in 2013, BCT uses fine art to raise awareness of honor killing, child/forced marriage, female genital mutilation, acid violence, child military conscription, and other criminal traditions that harm millions of females each year yet globally are not considered crimes. “The beauty of fine art helps people access these difficult topics,” says Jefferson, “and that consciousness is the first step toward changing these human rights violations worldwide.”
Under curator Gneich, BCT has exhibited in five major Chicago area venues including Chicago-Kent College of Law, the Beverly Arts Center, The Art Center – Highland Park, North Central College, and the Bridgeport Art Center. Each exhibit features new work and is accompanied by in-depth community and educational outreach including panels, artists workshops, screenings, dance performances, high profile speakers and more. :”The UN CSW allows us to take this work to an international level,” says Gneich.
Running from March 14 to March 24, 2016, the UN Commission on the Status of Women is attended by thousands of policy makers, legal influencers, educators and activists from around the world. Panels are free and open to the public.
For more information please contact:
Cheryl Jefferson, Executive Producer, The Art of Influence: Breaking Criminal Traditions, Office 312-939-7130 Mobile 312-953-8102
www.breakingcriminaltraditions.com
An event that is currently on exhibition in Paris combines artwork from international artists at the art center of St. Germain des Prés. Back to Paris is on view from February 18 to 27, 2016.
Monteoliveto Gallery will represent my artwork at the Paris Galerie Etienne de Causans, featuring the Eco Globe, Rainforests and Ecosystems.
About Eco Cool Globe: Rainforests and Ecosystems
The world’s tropical rainforests cover only a small part of the earth’s surface- about 6%, yet they are home to over half the species of plants and animals in the world.
Rainforests are the subject of frequent campaigns calling for their protection, but what role do they play in our lives? There are seven very important everyday foods linked to the rainforests.
1) Coffee is one of nature’s most traded commodities, supporting more than 25 million people globally. Today the best coffee still comes from farms where the beans are grown under the shade of a rainforest canopy.
2) Bananas This tropical fruit is part of a $5 billion global industry. Today more than 15% of all the bananas traded internationally come from Rainforest Alliance Certified™ plantations.
3) Acai is considered the superfood of superfoods, and it is the berries – rich in protein, minerals, anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory elements.
4) Cinnamon is literally the bark of the cinnamomum burmannii tree and is mostly grown by farmers on small remote parcels of land, nestled alongside other native trees. Once harvested, the bark curls naturally as it dries to form the “cinnamon sticks” we find in our grocery stores. Cinnamon’s good pal vanilla also grows naturally within a forest environment.
5) Black Pepper, peppercorn, grows on the flowering vine of the Piperaceae family in tropical regions around the world, especially South Asia and Southeast Asia.
6) Cocoa, like coffee, can be cultivated under the shade of a forest canopy and is found throughout West Africa, Asia and Central and South America.
7) Palm Oil is found in food products, cosmetics, shampoos, soaps and a myriad of products most of us use daily.
This particular “Cool Globe” sculpture was created especially for exhibitions represented by Monteoliveto Gallery.
A second globe was a collaboration with two other artists, Sandie Bacon and Ann Bingham-Freeman, and it was first unveiled in Los Angeles by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger:
Collector’s Choice at Amsterdam Whitney Gallery
Illusion, oil & cold wax on canvas, 24 x 24 inches, has been selected as “Collector’s Choice” and is currently on view at Amsterdam Whitney Gallery, 511 West 25th Street, Chelsea, New York City. The group exhibition of artwork, created by esteemed international selected artists, continues until March 22, 2016.