Opening Reception at Gallery Guichard Art That Touches The Soul

Since its opening in 2005, Gallery Guichard has been Bronzeville’s preeminent gallery of art. Gallery Guichard represents artists from around the world but specializes in art of the African Diaspora. Featuring a new artist every six to eight weeks, the Gallery has hosted several international exhibits as well as local and national exhibits. All of their work is original and is in several mediums including paintings, sculptures, ceramic, and even furniture.

Co-Owner Andre Guichard, and, Collectors during opening night. 

Photo Credit Airbnb

This photo was taken when I was working on my painting last summer 2016. The image I had in my clipping files of four children looking through the window of an ice cream parlor with a retro vibe.  I took them from that store and placed them outside looking in a window of ice blue chill lake, or could be the cold chill winter sky of Chicago. I created a brick wall to stress the notion of brick walls being built to keep people out, or to keep people in. Which is determined by the person doing the spectating. The children I shared beauty and diversity, and what that looks like with children playing together, from a world I grew up in and experienced as a child.

"Get Your Back UP Off the Wall", @Bruton, Acrylic on Canvas 38" x 40"

Why did I name the paintng get your back off the wall? I was listening to Kool and the Gang and that gave me inspiration and movement of my brush strokes.

I had a visitor come by the gallery, and said it reminder her of when as kids they would peer through the window of the mortuary to watch members of the white family be viewed. And as Negro's in Chicago that's where you would stand instead of being seated with your family. I believed her experience because growing up and still to this day there are two cemeteries, one white and one for black in most parts of the old south.  

This painting was also done between projects, I was working on the great black migration piece, for Echo's of Our Journey, and was doing a lot of research about that era. The clothes the children are wearing are not era based, just play clothes, I painted the shoes the same way to fade into memory like the taste of a cold cool ice cream cone, on a warm sunny afternoon, shared between friends.