art.wikisort.org - Artist

Rodney Ewing is an interdisciplinary artist in San Francisco, California. Ewing's work explores identity, narrative, history, space, displacement, physical vulnerability and violence.[1][2] Ewing's work involves extensive subject research.[3] Often Ewing uses once-common, but now little-known historical objects. He also uses first person narratives.[4] Ewing's art explores and translates the literal and emotional dimensions of these subjects.[3] Along with historical images of artifacts and victims of violence, Ewing often layers in quotations by different writers. Reading these quotations, sometimes obscured by the visual elements of the piece, creates another experience that is unique and nuanced within the context of the print, sculpture or installation.[5] He employs different methods to draw the viewer in, literally and figuratively, toward the piece and immerses the viewer in a reorienting experience of images, words and ideas.

Rodney Ewing
Education	BFA, Louisiana State University MFA, West Virginia University
Website	https://www.rodneyewing.com/

Ewing's work has referenced James Baldwin, Henry Box Brown, Colson Whitehead, George Stinney, Charles Moore, the San Francisco Redevelopment after Japanese Internment, Ralph Ellison, Petrus Camper and Saul Williams.

Reviews

“Rodney Ewing’s drawings, installations, and mixed media works focus on his need to intersect body and place, memory and fact to re-examine human histories, cultural conditions, and events. With his work he is pursuing a narrative that requires us to be present and intimate.”[6]

...much of [Ewing's] work is about empowering the audience and giving them opportunities to recognize their own agency[7]

Early life and education

Rodney Ewing’s father was a Vietnam veteran who also served 20 years in the Air Force. Rodney Ewing also served in the military and is a Desert Storm veteran.[8]

Ewing’s father introduced him to art through comic books.  Ewing also said he went to schools that had strong art programs.[3]

Ewing received his Bachelor of Fine Art: Printmaking, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA in 1989 and his Master of Fine Arts: Printmaking, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV in 1992.

Residencies and select exhibitions

Close to Home, Creativity in Crisis,[9] San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2020 San Francisco, CA [10]

The Space Program, 2020 San Francisco, CA

Project Space: Headlands Center for the Arts, 2019 Marin, CA[11]

Museum of the African Diaspora, Smithsonian Museum Affiliate, 2019 San Francisco, CA[12][13][14]

Bemis, 2019 Omaha, Nebraska[15]

Artifacts: On War & Survival at the National Veterans Art Museum, 2018

One Less Too Many, PASS7, Lisbon, Portugal

Djerassi Resident Artists Program, 2018, Woodside, CA

Recology, 2017, San Francisco, CA[16]

Hangar Lisbon, 2017, Lisbon, Portugal

Reconstruct, Long Island University, Brooklyn, Brooklyn, NY

Beyond Printmaking 5, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX

Sanctuary City: For Liberty and Justice for Some? San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, San Francisco, CA[17][18]

Never Alone:  Exploring the Bonds Between and With Members of the Armed Forces, San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, San Francisco, CA

de Young Museum, 2015, San Francisco, CA[19]

San Francisco Arts Commission Award Recipient 2015–2016

Select works

Sum of My Father[20]

Between Worlds: Portals installation explores the history of displacement and resilience of African Americans with doors, windows and words.[21]

"Longitude and Latitude explores the geographic and mnemonic landscapes of historical and social events."[22][23]

References

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