The Shellof Vitus

  CHILDREN'S COALITION TEAMS UP WITH NORTHEAST LOUISIANA ARTS COUNCIL + CITY OF MONROE + LOCAL ARTIST, VITUS SHELL The Children's Coalition for Northeast Louisiana is bringing more visual art into Downtown Monroe. Supported in part by a grant from the Northeast Louisiana Arts Council with funds from the City of Monroe, this initiative will include a mural within our Family Garden by Vitus Shell. The mission of the Children’s Coalition for Northeast Louisiana is to “Create communities where children and families thrive.” The project CHILDREN THRIVE, seeks to capture the essence of this mission in our community by creating the first of a series of public art mural panels designed by muralist Vitus Shell and painted with help of children and youth in our community. Monroe native, Vitus Shell, will work with a group of artists and local children and youth to implement the proposed project. Vitus Shell has exhibited at universities, museums, and private galleries across the country;...

  Vitus Shell: Something The Folks Down Home Can Connect With For "Black Art in America" Vitus Shell has seen a lot of worlds. Monroe, Louisiana where he grew up, Memphis, Tennessee where he was educated, and life overall. He loves drawing on that dualism for his work. His pieces don’t just capture ordinary black folk, his work places them on a long-deserved pedestal and demonstrates sensitivity in the same breath. Whether it’s confronting colorism (or even skin bleaching if you want to take it there) with a piece like “Lighter,” or during showings that channel Blaxploitation’s cinematic history, like “3 the Hard Way: HMAAC” which tackled toxic masculinity and BAIA promoted. Vitus himself wonders how he’s so fortunate that he’s pushing up murals and not daisies. He grew up in the Deep South and became one of 20 black freshmen entering Memphis College of Art in 1996, at the time the largest number of blacks matriculating. He chuckled at the memory when I spoke with him on the ...

Current Artists-in-Residence SPRING 2019 Sculpture - Tara Bogart  www.tmbogart.com Sculpture - Larry Buller  www.larrybullerceramics.com Sculpture - Jake Couri  www.jakecouri.net Ceramics - Yewen Dong  dongyewen.com Printmaking - Ruhan Feng  www.ruhanfeng.com Woodworking - Rhodes Hinman  Painting & Drawing - Marta Lee  www.martaleeart.com Ceramics - Corwyn Lund  www.corwynlund.com Printmaking - Kelly Taylor Mitchell  www.kellytaylormitchellstudio.com Photo/New Media - Ciara O’Kelly  www.ciaraokelly.com Ceramics - Kelsie Rudolph  www.kelsierudolph.com Woodworking - Emma Senft  www.emmasenft.com Painting & Drawing - Vitus Shell  www.theshellofvitus.com

  The Dedication: An Exploration of a People Vitus Shell, Painting Visiting Artist lecture: Thursday, October 11, 5pm, TVAC 103  Reception 6-7 pm The School of Design invites all faculty, staff and students to the closing reception for current exhibitions in the Bethea and Moffett Galleries at the F Jay Taylor Visual Arts Center. Painter Vitus Shell will present an artist lecture related to his exhibition The Dedication: An Exploration of a people now on view in the Bethea Gallery. An audience Q and A and closing reception follows the presentation. Refreshments will be provided.

  Vitus Shell: Picturing the Black Experience BY JOHN R. KEMP / May-June 2018 / Louisiana Living Magazine The poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht said, “Art is not a mirror to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.” To Vitus Shell of Monroe, art is indeed a hammer. It is a means to shape reality for the outside world to see the African American experience through strong, compelling and often unsettling images of black contemporary life in America. His paintings focus public attention on a long dormant subject that has become as relevant today as it was in the troubled 1960s. Three themes drive that message — irony, activism and his notion of black coolness. “My large scale paintings are geared toward the black experience, giving agency to people from this community through powerful image deconstruction, sampling and remixing identity, civil rights and contemporary black culture,” Shell says. “In my work, I strive to bridge the gap between the older and younger generations by e...

 

  Artists Selected to Participate in Winter/Spring 2018 Residency Program Omaha, Neb.– Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts announces  artists selected for its international Artist-in-Residence Program  taking place  January 10–April 6, 2018 . The diverse range of disciplines includes painting, drawing, poetry, digital animation, sculpture, performance, printmaking, installation, graphic design, music, photography and filmmaking. Represented areas of focus include identity; how materialism forms culture; generational stories; social systems and institutions; psychological and physical iconography; black culture in America; recreational activities and their relationship to the landscape; and speculative fiction. Participating artists include: Trevor Amery  ( San Diego, CA) Trevor Amery is a multidisciplinary artist interested in what happens at the intersection of objects,  socializing, collecting and personal narratives. During his residency at Bemis, he plan...