……..Twenty Years!

New Door Creative announces its twenty-year anniversary with an exhibition and reception at 1601 Saint Paul Street, Baltimore, Maryland on December 8th, 2024, from 2 to 5 PM. The milestone exhibition will feature a collection of work by artists who have exhibited at New Door during the past two decades.

Originating on Baltimore’s historic Antique Row, New Door Creative became a pioneer exhibition venue in Baltimore’s Station North Art and Entertainment District in 2004. Relying upon a sincere passion for creative expression, critical interactions with a range of international artists, and a sense of the wealth of untapped imagination, the gallery has featured artists from around the globe in projects engaging stories that reference personal, cultural, and social critique, and who share a unique experience that transcends mere technique. Major exhibitions have explored themes such as confinement, displacement, migration, personal and emotional encounter, and the pursuit of championship; work that does not reiterate popular conversations but introduces new narratives that enable curiosity and contemplation. 

Founding director, artist, and curator Michelle Talibah has dedicated the venue to prominent and under-represented talent. New Door exhibitions have featured work by legendary artists such as Faith Ringgold, Valerie Maynard, Richard Mayhew, and David C. Driskell whose contributions to defining the canon known as African American art are undisputed.  

The exhibition will showcase works by:

I grew up in New Orleans.  As a kid, I was free to roam the city, something no responsible parent would allow today.  I loved the colorful homes, majestic trees, and horrifically broken sidewalks. Even as a ten-year-old, I knew New Orleans was special, but I didn't realize how special until we moved to a small farm seventy miles north.   

I first began painting out of necessity in 1993 when I was a Navy lieutenant stationed in Diego Garcia, a small island in the Indian Ocean.  Although the island was a tropical paradise, the cinder block walls of my apartment were painted stark white.  It was jarring and depressing; that's where my pursuit of filling blank spaces began.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Initially, my paintings began as deconstructions of memories of the New Orleans I experienced in the early ‘60s.  Over time, I learned to embrace the influences of other places I’ve lived or visited.  I expand on those memories through shapes and colors after hypnopompic illusions when they occur. Every place has a color, a shape, and a sound.  

Cheryl Edwards, painter, printmaker

Helen Elliott, enamellist

David C. Driskell, painter and printmaker

Jeannette Glover, painter

Patrick Henry, painter

Bruno Metura, painter

Aziza Gibson-Hunter, painter, mixed media artist

Greg Bridges, painter

Oliver Lake, painter, musician

Judy Tallwing, painter

Justyne Fischer, social justice printmaker

TAFA, painter

James Phillips, painter

Maria-Theresa Fernandes, fiber and textile artist

Joyce Wellman, painter, printmaker

Gloria Mack, painter

Acquaetta Williams, painter, mixed media, and glass artist

Morgan Monceaux, painter and mixed media portrait artist