ohMahART!

Artists Pamela Conyers-Hinson and Ilaamen Pelshaw join us this week to discuss their upcoming two-person exhibition, The Beauty of Color. The show opens Friday, September 9, 2022, at Amplify Arts's Generator Space. 

The Beauty of Color celebrates the work of two artists and the intersectional identities they hold. In acknowledging the mutual influence Latin American and African American cultures have on one another, the exhibition deploys color as a functional apparatus to build solidarity across the experiences of diaspora and migration. Using a wide range of production techniques and skills–painting, sculpture, and interactive installation–the artists synthesize a shared visual lexicon that privileges culturally specific aesthetic traditions over Eurocentric norms.

In today's episode, I was provided a gallery tour of The Ground Beneath, a group exhibition curated by Jared Spence, currently on display at Petshop Gallery in Benson. The Ground Beneath features work by 18 artists, including Jared, all centered on the theme of celebrating the beauty of our feet and the significant roles they play in carrying us along our journeys.  

The Ground Beneath will be on display through August 25, and will be accompanied by two events:

Artist and curator Jared Packard joins us this week to discuss his solo show, Performative Skin, on display through July 1 at Project Project (1818 Vinton St., Omaha, NE). In this episode, we also talk about embedding mortality in art through the use of materials in their raw form and going against the traditional teachings in 101-level art-making courses.

CW: depression, suicide, addiction

Priscilla Morales, Jeanne Pittack, and Natasha Kessler of SugarWolvesMacramé discuss their collaborative show, Emitiendo Voces Ancestrales, Casting Ancestral Voices, which displayed during the final week of April 2022. The show explored heritage through ancestral ties and inspiration, love, wisdom, and lineage. The artists share with us their ancestry and heritage, and how they've used their artistic practice to learn more about their lineage to find deeper connections to their culture. Kessler also teaches us about macramé - the art of knotting cord or string in patterns to make decorative articles.

This week we sit down with Rowena Bennett, owner of Tinsy Thoughts and creator of Pinapel and Friends, to discuss art as activism and how art can empower self-love and inspire kindness in others.

In this episode, Sylvie Fortin, interdependent curator and Curator-in-Residence at the Bemis Center, shares with us how she became engaged with the concept of the currencies of hospitality, and how it has evolved since its inception.

During a successful career as a physician, Dr. Bob Mathews used his time in the ER to discover a love of portraits and figures. In this episode, we learn more about how Dr. Mathews has taken traditional portrait painting to a new level, giving a unique form of expression to each figure he creates.

Patty Talbert has been a practicing artist for more than 13 years. Following a break from art after obtaining her BA from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Patty has hit her stride, taking her knowledge of batik art and curating it to fit her own style. In this episode, we listen as Patty walks us through her technique and shares her journey to embracing her identity as a Black woman artist.

Artist and muralist Mary Ensz gets personal with us this week as she shares her personal and professional journey with art as it took them through a long battle with mental health, marriage, children, and sobriety. CW: This episode mentions drug and alcohol abuse, and suicide.

Digital artist Anthony Peña joins us this week to chat about the public art projects that got him nominated for two OEAAs - The Hope Mural and Metro Orbt Art + Infrastructure. Anthony became well-known for his work Hope, depicting a young girl standing with her fist raised in the air, a universal symbol of solidarity and fighting systems of oppression. The large scale mural was installed in the Millworks Common area in October 2020. Since then, Anthony has busied himself with additional mural projects, commission work, and developing his graphic novel, 4Outof5.

Social media can be tricky. We come up against the algorithm, the troll, and the occasional unexpected censorship and restriction. One person who knows this all too well is internationally recognized multi-disciplinary artist Bart Vargas. In this episode, Bart discusses the notoriety that has come with posting his daily drawings everyday for the past 810 days, and gives advice to artists who may also come up against the similar barriers he encounters.

In this short episode, learn more about why ohMahART! was created.

Shop small this holiday weekend with some of our favorite local makers, artists, and designers.