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Yahoo
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Yale University Art Gallery brings 18th century artist George Romney into the 21st century
The Yale University Art Gallery makes a clever move in their 'Romney: Brilliant Contrasts in Georgian England' exhibit by providing a brilliant contrast with modern American painting in the same style. The largest and most prominent piece in the exhibit, which runs through Oct. 19, is not by its main subject, 18th century artist George Romney. It is 'Portrait of Lynette Yiaom-Boakye, Jacob Morland of Capplethwaite' by a present-day painter (and 2001 Yale School of Art graduate) Kehinde Wiley, who is known for rethinking classical portraiture by introducing contemporary Black people into a domain dominated for centuries by rich white men. Wiley directly references Romney's 'Jacob Morland of Capplethwaite' by his subject, a self-aware woman wearing glasses and a plaid skirt hold a hunting rifle. The painting provides a sharp juxtaposition to Romney's more conventional subject matter. The rest of the exhibit, meanwhile, shows the creative sides of Romney that don't need to be countered or challenged, including his extraordinary drawings of the deplorable conditions in British prisons, inspired by his visits there with reformer John Howard; his lively illustrations of Bible stories and Shakespeare plays; his stunning 'Study of a Clouded Moonlit Sky'; and other works which, if you didn't know Romney died in 1802, you would swear had to have been created a century or so later. His work — with the exceptions of those frilly portraits which are purposefully downplayed here — is vibrant, loose, raw and modernistic. The Yale University Art Gallery arranges them vividly and adds some musical instruments to the display to enhance that weird vibrating drone you get from looking at some of these eerie drawings. The Yale University Art Gallery is at 1111 Chapel St. in downtown New Haven. Visiting hours are Tuesdays through Fridays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. with hours extended until 8 p.m. on Thursdays.
Associated Press
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
Dunhuang by Zhiyan Huang Wins Gold in A' Jewelry Design Awards
Zhiyan Huang's Exceptional Jewelry Design, Dunhuang, Receives Prestigious A' Design Award Recognition COMO, CO, ITALY, June 26, 2025 / / -- The A' Design Award, a highly respected and well-recognized award in the field of jewelry design, has announced Dunhuang by Zhiyan Huang as the Gold winner in the Jewelry Design category. This prestigious recognition highlights the exceptional design and craftsmanship of Dunhuang, solidifying its place as a standout piece in the competitive world of jewelry design. Dunhuang's recognition by the A' Jewelry Design Award is significant not only for Zhiyan Huang but also for the broader jewelry industry and consumers. The design's innovative fusion of traditional Chinese culture with contemporary design concepts aligns with the evolving tastes and desires of modern jewelry enthusiasts. By showcasing the potential for cultural heritage to inspire cutting-edge design, Dunhuang sets a new standard for meaningful and impactful jewelry. What sets Dunhuang apart is its masterful integration of digital technology with the intangible cultural heritage of Chinese filigree inlay craftsmanship. Inspired by the flying asparas from Cave 320 of the Mogao Caves, the jewelry collection utilizes high-precision 3D modeling alongside manual filigree inlay techniques to create stunningly intricate and dynamic designs. This innovative approach allows Dunhuang to capture the essence of ancient art while appealing to contemporary sensibilities. The Gold A' Design Award for Dunhuang is not only a celebration of Zhiyan Huang's exceptional work but also a catalyst for future innovation within the Liang Xing brand. This recognition validates the brand's artistic and archaeological approach to jewelry design, encouraging further exploration of Chinese art, intangible heritage, and contemporary design on a global stage. As Liang Xing continues to push boundaries and redefine expectations, the A' Jewelry Design Award serves as a motivating force for the entire team. Team Members Dunhuang was designed under the creative direction of Zhiyan Huang, the founder of Liang Xing. The design team at Liang Xing skillfully translated the visual elements of the Dunhuang Mogao Caves into wearable jewelry, capturing the dynamic beauty of the flying asparas. Interested parties may learn more at: About Zhiyan Huang Zhiyan Huang is a designer and visual artist based in New York, focusing on editorial design and contemporary art. With an MFA in graphic design from the Yale School of Art and a BFA in communication design from Parsons, The New School, Huang brings a multidisciplinary approach to her work. As the founder of the Chinese jewelry brand Liang Xing and a collaborative artist at Harvard FAS CAMLab, Huang continues to push the boundaries of design and cultural expression. About Liang Xing Liang Xing is a designer brand that seamlessly combines contemporary design concepts with the rich heritage of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) craftsmanship. Through its innovative designs, Liang Xing aims to evoke an emotional resonance between modern individuals and ICH, promoting the comprehensive cultural exportation of these invaluable skills. By bridging the gap between tradition and contemporary aesthetics, Liang Xing is redefining the landscape of jewelry design. About Golden A' Design Award The Golden A' Design Award is a prestigious recognition granted to designs that exemplify innovation, skill, and impact within their respective fields. Winners of this award are noted for their visionary approach and ability to exceed expectations, serving as benchmarks for excellence in art, science, design, and technology. The rigorous selection process involves blind peer review by an expert jury panel, ensuring that only the most deserving designs receive this distinguished honor. The Golden A' Design Award celebrates designs that make a positive difference, inspiring and advancing their industries. About A' Design Award The A' Design Award is an international and juried design competition that recognizes and promotes superior products and projects across all industries. Organized annually since 2008, the A' Design Award welcomes entries from visionary designers, innovative companies, and influential brands worldwide. Through a rigorous blind peer-review process, entries are evaluated by an expert jury panel based on pre-established criteria, ensuring an impartial and thorough assessment of each submission. By celebrating exceptional designs on a global stage, the A' Design Award aims to create a better world through the power of good design, inspiring and motivating designers to develop products and projects that positively impact society. Interested parties may learn more about the A' Design Awards, explore jury members, view past laureates, and participate with their projects at Makpal Bayetova A' DESIGN AWARD & COMPETITION SRL + +39 031 497 2900 email us here Legal Disclaimer: EIN Presswire provides this news content 'as is' without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.
The Guardian
12-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Painting was my final act of defiance': how a chef from war-torn Eritrea wowed the art world after his death
What is home? What does it mean to belong? For Eritrea-born artist, activist and chef Ficre Ghebreyesus, who fled war in his homeland at the age of 16 and landed on US shores in 1981, these were vital questions that played out in his vibrant, often dreamlike canvases. 'Painting was the miracle, the final act of defiance through which I exorcised the pain and reclaimed my sense of place, my moral compass, and my love for life,' the artist wrote in 2000, in his application for a masters in fine art at Yale School of Art. Ghebreyesus, who died suddenly of a heart attack aged 50 in 2012, left behind more than 800 paintings. These were barely exhibited in his lifetime but have garnered acclaim posthumously, presented at the 2022 Venice Biennale and in a handful of US shows. Now Ghebreyesus will have his first solo European exhibition at Modern Art gallery in London, made up of 25 canvases from the 1990s to 2011, many of which have never been displayed publicly. From vertiginous paintings brimming with pattern and colour to cubist-inflected figurative depictions to abstract geometric patchworks that might denote landscapes, the selection conveys his immense range of styles, sources and subject matter. According to the Ethiopian-American painter Julie Mehretu, Ghebreyesus managed to mine and invent 'a visual language for displacement, of insistence, of affirmation despite loss, loneliness, mourning and grieving'. Ghebreyesus was born to a well-respected family in the Eritrean capital Asmara in 1962, a year after the eruption of the 30-year war of independence from Ethiopia. Despite never living in the Horn of Africa country after his teens, his paintings draw on its rich convergence of influences: the Coptic Christian and Islamic iconography found in Asmara's churches and mosques, prehistoric rock paintings, grand Italianate architecture from Eritrea's colonial past and mural portraits of Marx, Lenin and Stalin painted during the brutal regime of Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam. Ghebreyesus's paintings hold in tension the joy of home life with his parents and five siblings and the horror of soldiers invading their compound and tanks in the streets. In 1978, after his school was shuttered by troops and Ghebreyesus tried to sign up for the Eritrean resistance, his mother packed him off with his cousin to travel on foot across the border into Sudan, then to Italy, Germany, finally arriving in the United States in 1981. These experiences of upheaval and migration show up obliquely in his work. In a pastel work on paper from the 1990s, a luminous moon casts its glow over a barren mountainous scene with a lone tent and two figures huddled by a fire. Another work from the same period is an orange, purple and teal seascape of floating vessels, with what look like tropical flowers sprouting in their wake. Ghebreyesus's widow, American poet Elizabeth Alexander, says he described such scenes as 'dreamscape spaces of memory, flights of fantasy, but grounded in memory'. Boats are a recurrent motif in his oeuvre along with gates, portals and angels. A painting from between 2002 and 2007 depicts sails camouflaged within a square patterning of blues and greens, recalling woven baskets, while another portrays two figures immersed in fluid within some kind of container, tenderly embracing or whispering. In Ghebreyesus's work, boats have 'a roundness, a human bodiness to them, that proper boats don't have,' Alexander notes. 'I think they represent passage from one space to the next, be it a country, be it a state of mind, be it a culture.' On arrival in the US, the artist gravitated to New York and then New Haven, Connecticut, juggling several restaurant jobs at a time, studying and becoming involved in activism for Eritrean liberation. He studied painting at the Art Students' League, a training ground for many abstract expressionists. In 1992 he and his two brothers opened the popular restaurant Caffe Adulis. It was there, while working as executive chef, that Ghebreyesus met Alexander, then a professor at the University of Chicago. They were engaged within a week and went on to have two children, Solomon and Simon. From this time on his palette shifted from darker to lighter hues. 'That sense of re-creating a very family-oriented wonderland was a deep safety and landing for him that I think allowed other things to come out,' Alexander says. Ghebreyesus was, she says, 'a very, very passionate, ardent father'; photos show the children as babies happily lolling on his canvases. Sign up to Art Weekly Your weekly art world round-up, sketching out all the biggest stories, scandals and exhibitions after newsletter promotion Only in 2008, after completing his MFA at Yale, where he won a painting prize, did Ghebreyesus stop cooking and devote himself to art full-time. He would spend many hours in the studio working simultaneously on several unstretched canvases of different sizes, always nourished by music: he loved Thelonious Monk and Ali Farka Touré. Indeed, music fed into his paintings. It's in Seated Musician II, painted around 2011, which gestures to cubism in its colourful geometric planes and fragmented depiction of the subject, whose disembodied, quizzical face floats above the rest of him as he plays the lyre-like k'rar. And music is undeniably present in the enormous colourful burlap painting Map/Quilt (1999), which evokes the bursting rhythms of an improvised jazz composition. Jostling forms in coral, teal, mauve and orange, dotted with glyphs and symbols, stretch feverishly across every inch of the picture plane, dazzling the eye. Ghebreyesus was reluctant to exhibit his work, driven by the desire simply to create, which seems somehow prescient in light of his untimely death. 'He knew he had something to say and to share and to give,' says Alexander, whose 2015 biography of her husband, The Light of the World: A Memoir was nominated for a Pulitzer prize. The artist's forthcoming London show is something of 'a going home' in view of the number of Eritreans living in the capital, she says. His paintings connect to the yearning and lament of exile but also to the joy of reunion and the vitality of diaspora. Above all, they exude an extraordinary, inextinguishable life force. Ficre Ghebreyesus is at Modern Art, London, 14 March to 10 May
