April Marten “Frances Wasn’t A Saint”
Monica King Conteporary
[Image: April Marten "Untitled (Frances Wasn't a Saint) No. 7" (2019) pigment print on panel, 24 x 24 in.]
This event has ended.
“It’s long been my intention to open a gallery space that encourages collectors from all walks of life to approach art with an unmistakable sense of curiosity,” states Monica King. “My vision celebrates the vital contribution that contemporary art brings to our collective society and to each of our individual souls.”
Frances Wasn’t a Saint features a wide range of artworks including dynamic still images, multimedia sculptural installations, and a video work deriving from extensive isolated performances enacted by the artist. An ongoing inquiry into identity and the societal and power structures that we allow to shape it – Frances is real, although we cannot touch her. “I call her a ghost because she is not an invented persona, Frances references the real: an ambiguous female figure who lived, a grandmother I couldn’t really know, but who is talking to me and through me now,” states April Marten. “In conversation with this “ghost,” I allow her to take form in my body through performance. My performances extend from the referent while quoting from our culture’s hyperrealities including fairy-tales, grand narrative ideologies, biblical myths, social constructions, and manufactured desires.”
A live performance by the artist will take place on Saturday, September 7th at 2 PM, with a casual discussion to follow, moderated by curator Heather Zises, co-editor of the recent hard-cover Schiffer book, 50 Contemporary Women Artists.
Monica King Contemporary presents a culturally and creatively diverse inaugural program that includes artists Luis Arturo Aguirre, Gregory Coates, Jason Craighead, Joy Episalla, Maya Goded, André Gregory, Judithe Hernández, Cindy Kleine, Juan Logan, April Marten, Nelson Morales, Mallory Page, Oswaldo Ruiz, Chris Watts, Charles Edward Williams, Taylor Anton White, and Carrie Yamaoka.
April Marten (b.1969) works across media including sculpture, installation, performance art, video, and book arts. Marten’s artistic practice developed out of her personal experiences with—and, ultimately, her escape from—a fundamentalist religious cult; common themes in her work include the feminine dilemma, religious identity, and patriarchal systems of power and social violence. Marten’s work has been exhibited nationally at institutions including Foley Gallery in New York, NY; The Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC; the Bechtler Museum, Charlotte, NC; the Zuckerman Museum of Art, Kennesaw, GA; Ewing Gallery, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, GA; Anne Rudd Galyon and Irene Cullis Galleries at Greensboro College, Greensboro, NC, and Van Every/Smith Galleries at Davidson College, Davidson, NC, among others. She recently completed a residency at The McColl Center for Art + Innovation in Charlotte, NC, and is the recipient of the 2017 Seaton Fellowship at the University of Tennessee. Her work is in the collections of the Women’s Impact Fund, Kennesaw State University, University of North Carolina Charlotte, and in the Ewing Gallery Collection, University of Tennessee. Marten currently lives and works in Knoxville, Tennessee.
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Schedule
from September 06, 2019 to October 12, 2019