Monday, June 8, 2009

James Ellis Coleman - "Stay In Your Own Backyard"

James Ellis Coleman: "Stay In Your Own Backyard"
mixed media installation

photo: Bob Raymond (MAG)


video still: Jane Wang (MAG)


video still: Jane Wang


An installation that examines the subtle relationships between the images of shoes and the coded messages of turn of the century song lyrics about African Americans and the Irish.

As the Artist states:
“Lyrics that were intended to be humorous but are in fact racially insensitive."


James Ellis Coleman has an MFA and a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art. He has had solo shows at the Sherborn Public Library, Sherborn MA., Harris Berman Diversity Gallery, Tuffs, Watertown MA, Gallery at Concepts, So. Natick MA, and The Center for Art in Natick, Natick MA. He has also shown in group shows at the Fuller Museum of Art, Brockton, MA, Cambridge Art Association, Cambridge, MA, MPG Contemporary, Boston, MA, Limner Art Gallery, Hudson NY, Amazing Things Art Center, (juried), Framingham MA, Brush Art Gallery and Studios, Lowell MA, Hera Gallery, (juried), Wakefield RI, and the annual juried show at the Zullo Gallery, Medfield MA.

He was honored to have a commission from Urban Arts, in Boston Ma. in 2004 as well as a residency at The Vermont Studios in Johnson Vermont in 2005 and won first prize at the Amazing Things Art Center in Framingham Ma.


Notes from the Curator:

1. You can see/hear a brief conversation with James while he is de-installing his piece if you watch the two videos posted on June 6th from the POV of a visitor to the exhibit.

2. A couple of visitors responded to and "got" this piece instantly: the journalist G. Jeffrey MacDonald who often reports on social and religious issues and the other is the jazz pianist and vocalist Carolyn Wilkins who previously had heard about the song but had never previously seen the lyrics.


No comments:

Post a Comment