Jasmine Murrell’s Provocative Insights

[The Arts]

See what the buzz is all about as Jasmine Murrell welcomes guests to an Artist Talk on her compelling multimedia retrospective, Provocative Insights on Saturday, July 25th , 2-4 pm at Center for Arts & Culture Skylight Gallery in Brooklyn.

Murrell, one of the youngest emerging artists ever offered a solo exhibition at the Gallery, employs paint, sculpture, photography, video, and found-object art to explore global commonalities through work from three series: 

[] Forbidden Foods explores maturity, guilt and sexuality, and their historical association with food. Through juxtaposing painted images with photographs on weathered surfaces, prevailing notions of beauty and perfection are examined. The work posits that real beauty and sensuality encompass change and embody the personal mementoes of cracks, crevices, marks, folds and bags.

[] Finding Home considers the wide range of meaning of “home” in photographs from a year-long commissioned project documenting living structures in Brazil, Bolivia, Peru and other countries. Also featured in this series are Murrell’s concrete-and-wire sculptures evoking urban disconnect and aged wood salvaged from her time in post-Katrina New Orleans and used as a quiet custodian of untold stories of suffering.

[] The Hoods are rough-hewn sculptured pieces addressing limited perceptions of the Black community from within and without. Murrell examines how the exaltation of negative images can shroud bright light, overshadowing self-validation and potential.

The 34 year-old Detroit native lives in Bedford Stuyvesant and has had solo shows at LA’s Pounder Kone Gallery, Detroit’s J Rainey Gallery and the University of Texas. She’s exhibited at Detroit’s African-American Museum, NYC’s MoCADA and National Black Fine Art Show, the Toronto Biennial and the Preto Gallery in Salvador, Brazil.

Provocative Insights runs through September 26th. The public is also invited to a youth workshop on Fri., July 31st.  Center for Arts & Culture Skylight Gallery is at 1368 Fulton St. Brooklyn,  3rd floor. Take the A and C trains to Nostrand Avenue.