AMSET’s two winter exhibitions will explore the theme of identity through the mixed media artworks of Japheth Asiedu-Kwarteng and Adrian Esparza. Esparza’s exhibition will be on view in the front main galleries and Asiedu-Kwarteng’s exhibition will be on view in the back main galleries.
Esparza (b. 1970) is an El Paso based artist who explores material culture by “re-instilling lost value in found objects.” Esparza first drew international appreciation through his deconstruction of the Mexican serape. Drawing inspiration from modern architecture, physical landscapes, and mid-century minimalist artists, Esparza depicts dramatic one and two-point perspectives to form striking dimensionality and volume. The artist diffuses color and expands space by weaving sarape thread around nails to form a grid. Geometric structures present in his drawings and sculptures re-imagine his own Mexican-American cultural heritage.
Adrian Esparza received his B.F.A. from the University of Texas at El Paso and his M.F.A. from California Institute of the Arts in 1998. Artist residencies include ArtPace in San Antonio and the Border Art Residency in La Union. Esparza’s textile pieces travel the globe through exhibitions in the following museums and galleries: Rufino Tamayo Museum of Contemporary Art, Mexico City, Mexico; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ; Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Houston, TX; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; The Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, Louisville, KY; Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, OH; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX; Museo del Barrio, New York, NY; Kimball Art Center, Park Cities, Utah. Most recently, the Dallas Museum of Art featured Esparza’s pieces through the C3 Visiting Artists Project. Esparza’s works reside in the permanent collections of multiple museums including the Dallas Museum of Art, the El Paso Museum of Art, and the Perez Miami Art Museum, as well as corporate art collections such as Fidelity Investments, Houston Airports, Microsoft and Soho House.
This exhibition will include large scale “constructions”, which are made up serape thread wound on wooden supports, as well as color drawings and mixed media paintings. A free gallery guide handout with an essay by independent curator and writer Leslie Moody Casto will be available to the public.
Asiedu-Kwarteng is a mixed media artist based in Edinburg, Texas, who primarily works in ceramics. He holds a BA in Industrial Art (Ceramics option) from KNUST, Ghana, and an MFA in Ceramics from Illinois State University, USA. Since 2022, he has worked as a Lecturer in the School of Art and Design at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (Edinburg, Texas), teaching Ceramics 1, Intermediate Ceramics, Design II, and Art Appreciation.
Asiedu-Kwarteng’s works are largely inspired by traditional Ghanaian symbolism. His research and creative practice are inspired by Kente and its history in materiality (expanding its symbolism) and explore the communicative potential of fabric and fibers to discuss movement, transition, and navigation of tangible and intangible foreign spaces.
For this exhibition, he intends to exhibit an artwork including over 140 elements inspired by his personal use of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services website, which he uses as an immigrant himself, as well as for his family. It will also include mixed media ceramic sculptures that incorporate traditional Ghanaian Kente fabric designs.
Japheth is a member of the International Academy of Ceramics, Artaxis and National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA). He has exhibited his works extensively in Ghana and the United States including in the 2022 and 2021 NCECA Annual and Multicultural Fellowship exhibitions. His works have been exhibited in Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA; Blue Line Arts, Roseville, CA; Weston Art Gallery, Cincinnati, OH; DAAP Galleries, Cincinnati, OH; University Galleries, Normal, IL; Taylor Gallery, Newark, DE; Grizzly Grizzly, Philadelphia, PA; and Rachel Cooper Gallery, Normal, IL. Japheth has works in the permanent collections of the University Galleries, Normal, Illinois and other private collectors in the United States.
This exhibition is generously funded in part by awards from the Texas Commission on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the City of Beaumont, the Wesley W. Washburn, M.D. and Lulu L. Smith, M.D. Endowment Fund, the C. Homer and Edith Fuller Chambers Charitable Foundation, Jefferson County and the members of the Art Museum of Southeast Texas.
To find out more about how National Endowment for the Arts grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov.
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