Derrick Alexis Coard Exhibition

White Columns

poster for Derrick Alexis Coard Exhibition

This event has ended.

White Columns presents a solo exhibition by the New York-based artist Derrick Alexis Coard (b. 1981, Brooklyn). Coard is affiliated with New York’s Healing Arts Initiative (H.A.I.), a center that works with adult artists with mental illness and developmental disabilities. Coard has worked at H.A.I. for the past six years.

Coard’s exhibition is a survey of his drawing practice, featuring works produced over the past 14 years. The earliest work in the exhibition was produced in 2000, when Coard was still in his teens, the most recent works date from 2014 and are from his ongoing series of imagined ‘portraits’ of bearded black men.

Writing about his life and work Coard states: “At the age of four I started to draw beyond a child’s natural ability. I was very gifted for my age. I had a fascination with New York City’s bridges and I drew them quite well. My art has evolved over the years as I have gotten older, and during my adolescence I started drawing images of bearded black men. I later found out that the bearded look is the image God favored when speaking through Moses for men not to use razors. … During high school I attended Saturday art classes at F.I.T., summer school at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and night classes at the Jamaica Art Center … and more recently I received hands-on experience working at the Saturday studio sessions at H.A.I. My art is my voice for the human race. I use bearded black men as a symbolic expression for possible change in the African American community. … My work is a form of testimonial where black men can be seen in a more positive and righteous light.”

Media

Schedule

from November 08, 2014 to December 20, 2014

  • Facebook

    Reviews

    All content on this site is © their respective owner(s).
    New York Art Beat (2008) - About - Contact - Privacy - Terms of Use