Photo: Anthony O. Akinbola and NYC DCLA Commisioner Finkelpearl during gallery installation

ANTHONY O. AKINBOLA

BLANKA AMEZKUA

MAURICIO ESQUIVEL

CHUXI GUO

Artist Panel Discussion: Sunday, February 24th / 2-4pm

Opening Reception: February 8th / 6-9pm

Photo: Maurico Esquival installing for Material with Meaning

Bronx River Art Center (BRAC) is proud to present Material With Meaning, featuring four emerging and mid-career New York artists whose international roots include Nigeria, Mexico, El Salvador, and China. 

This exhibit, showing from February 8 - March 16, 2019, continues BRAC's longstanding commitment to cultural diversity paired with artistic excellence.

For artists, their choice of materials is singular: the material was necessary to create the work and to communicate its message. Within the wide embrace of multi-media, artists are not reluctant to display their respect for the constituent elements of their work. In doing so, they also proclaim their identity as craftswo/men and bring art-making to street level, where it can be appreciated by the widest possible audience. 

Join us in BRAC's newly restored storefront, white box, gallery, in the heart of the Bronx, for this presentation of contemporary art that imbues the material installations with deep rooted meanings.

Anthony O. Akinbola

Anthony O. Akinbola's lush Du Rag abstractions reflect his bi-national consciousness. Akinbola's stunning transformation of the Du Rag into a fine art medium--while honoring its role as a potent signifier in Black male culture--mirrors his own nimble journey within a Nigerian-American identity.

Blanka Amezkua

Born in Mexico City and raised in California, Blanka Amezkua is a bicultural artist par excellence. Her work combines a performance sensibility with a deep commitment to Mexican folk/craft traditions and some the materials and/or techniques widely used by some of the folk artists there, such as: papel picado/cut paper, embroidery, bark paper, to name a few.

Mauricio Esquivel

Mauricio Esquivel was born in El Salvador and has lived in Nicaragua, Cuba, Mexico, Costa Rica, and London before making his home in New York City. For the last decade he has dedicated his art practice to exploring themes of human migration.

Chuxi Guo

Chuxi Guo, installation and video artist, was born in Beijing, China, and is now based in New York. He uses video and video interactive devices as the main medium to expand various interactive boundaries of video art. By considering the viewers' sensitivity to the space and information of their bodies and identities, and by continuously enhancing or repeating, weakening or revoking the images of different identity groups, he tries to construct the possibilities of image interaction to find human identity, Self-awareness and possible political thinking.