The long awaited 11th Annual Black Fine Arts Show officially opened to the public on Friday.

 

 

The show brought a new roster of premier galleries and art dealers to begin its second decade. The 2007 line-up includes such diverse works as the Reginald Gammon Estate, sculpture by Barbara Chase-Riboud and Issa Khone Diop and paintings by Allan Rohan Crite, Samuel Countee, Henry O. Tanner, John Biggers and Antonio Carreño. After a brief hiatus, ACA galleries returned with the work of the previously departed Benny Andrews.

 

 

Colours Fine Arts, Inc, one of the prominent galleries at the show is displaying for the third year in a row the work of the unorthodox African contemporary artist, Nya′. Unlike his previously exhibited work, which was predominantly taken from his series, “Voices of the Earth” this year, powerful pieces from his series entitled “Divine Inspiration” are also included.

 

 

The two displayed paintings from the African contemporary artist’s later series, poignantly entitled “Immortal Desires” and “Epiphany of Dreams” exhibit a considerable store of creative richness and artistic liberty.

 

 

At first sight, the paintings, ingeniously grounded on a layer of river sand look poetic, mythological, dreamy and romantically ornate. But upon close inspection, the canvases reveal a corpus of unbelievable precision. The heavily textured pieces are intuitive and intellectually outstanding, and each detail relates to every other detail.

 

 

In the vanishing background of each painting are illegible words and letters, all rendered in lower-case, (except for the names or references to God) using an unorthodox and laborious technique that includes rusted wire, gypsum and copious amounts of needlework.

 

 

Words are integral to the African contemporary artist’s work as stated in the custom stitched book that accompanied the work on display. In the opening essay of the catalogue, Nya′ writes,

 

 

“My work journeys to explore, discover and trace the root of words. I believe that words are the most powerful currency on earth; for words are the portrait of all human thoughts and the turbine that enables Man to eclipse seemingly insurmountable heights or sink his soul to unassailable depths.”

 

 

The prolific African contemporary artist concludes by saying;

 

 

“Words shape every Man’s history, impacts his present, influences his future and decides his earthly impact and eternal destiny”

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Seed Gallery Press