Three Los Angeles artists interpret the legacy of cotton in powerful mixed media works
WHAT: “Made in Cotton: Mark Steven Greenfield, Karen Hampton and Raksha Parekh
WHEN: October 25 – December 7, 2017
Mon-Thurs, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Opening reception, Wednesday, October 25, 5:30-7:30 p.m.; Conversation with the artists: 6 p.m.
WHERE: University Art Gallery, LaCorte Hall, A-107
California State University, Dominguez Hills, 1000 E. Victoria St., Carson, Calif.
Editors: Click here to download images of the artists’ work.
Closely intertwined with racial politics, the production of cotton and the history of slavery are encapsulated in the potent exhibit “Made in Cotton: Mark Steven Greenfield, Karen Hampton and Raksha Parekh,” which opens Wednesday, October 25 at the California State University, Dominguez Hill (CSUDH) University Art Gallery, and continues through December 7, 2017.
“Made in Cotton” features the edgy work of Mark Steven Greenfield, Karen Hampton, and Raksha Parekh. Originally organized by LA Artcore, Los Angeles in 2016, the exhibit includes cotton as a common thematic thread in a range of techniques including assemblage, textile, photography and drawing.
Each artist utilizes cotton in variegated ways in relationship to the African American experience, sometimes as powerful imagery, as in Greenfield’s delicate but dynamic linear abstractions of cotton fields, or as actual media, as in Parekh’s layered cotton constructions. Hampton also appropriates cotton as the material for her passionate exploration of her heritage with images of powerful matriarchs holding court on her textiles.
Greenfield’s incisive ink drawings are chilling reminders of the stunted generational evolution of equality as he reams history in his continuing series of works probing racial and political bias. In his drawings, slavery and its residue of social injustice and inequality still looms large in the political landscape and historic cotton production is an unhappy reminder of this burden.
Hampton’s visual genealogy is on display in a series of suspended textiles as she uses layers of imagery and writing to create her evocative, rich narratives. She immerses her stories in the media of cotton, natural dyes, media transfers, and hand stitches her oblique words.
Parekh works in an abstract vein, collating her South African legacy into poetic assemblages composed of elemental natural materials including raw cotton, sugarcane, gourds, and burnt sugar. Her large installation pieces are created by layering and stacking these materials into all-encompassing sculptures.
An opening reception for the artists will take place on Wednesday, Oct. 25, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the University Art Gallery. At 6 p.m. a conversation with the artists will be held.
This exhibitions and related events are sponsored by CSUDH’s College of Arts and Humanities and the Instructionally Related Activities Committee of the Associated Students, Inc. organization.
Open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday, the University Art Gallery is in room A-107 on the first floor of LaCorte Hall. Admission is free. CSU Dominguez Hills is located at 1000 E. Victoria St. in Carson. LaCorte Hall is on the west side of campus off Toro Center Drive/Tamcliff Street. Visitor parking in campus lots requires a parking permit, which is sold for $8 at yellow dispensing machines at each lot.
