Oletha DeVane: Traces of the Spirit

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Baltimore Museum of Art
10 ART MUSEUM DR
BALTIMORE, MD 21218
When: 
Repeats every week every Sunday and every Wednesday and every Thursday and every Friday and every Saturday until Sun Oct 20 2019.
Wednesday, June 19, 2019 - 10:00am to 5:00pm

Types: Art
Price Ranges: FREE
Phone: 4435731870
website

Projected lights, sounds, and reflective surfaces convey a sense of flowing water in Oletha DeVane’s installation, Traces of the Spirit, presented inside the BMA’s Spring House. The exhibition references the building’s past as a dairy and place where enslaved people were forced to labor and creates an altar-like location for a selection of the artist’s spirit sculptures. For these totem-like objects, DeVane (American, b. 1950) adorns hollow glass vessels with pieces from her collection of found objects such as beads, wood, mirrors, plastic figurines, sequins, fabric, and even bullet casings. These elements are applied in conjunction, at times, with small, expressive clay heads shaped by the artist, giving voice and life to the sculptures. DeVane draws upon spiritual and African diasporic traditions to reference stories, prayers, and myths. Snakes, birds, saints, and mermaids populate the dense surfaces. The resulting works evoke the possibilities of spiritual communication and transformation.

The exhibition catalog, published by the BMA, features more than 15 images of the artist’s spirit sculptures and essays by scholars Dr. Lowery Sims and Dr. Leslie King-Hammond as well as an interview with the artist.

Curated by Virginia Anderson, Curator  of American Art.

This exhibition is made possible with thanks to Justin C. Bakewell, along with Mimi Kapiloff, Cindy and Tom Kelly, Clair Zamoiski Segal, Gwen Davidson, Ziger/ Snead Architects and McDonogh School.