Artist Talk from CEAM Artist-in-Residence Erin Kendrick

The Crisp-Ellert Art Museum and Flagler College are delighted to announce Erin Kendrick as the first local/regional artist to participate in the CEAM Artist Residency. During Flagler College’s Spring semester from January through April 2022, Kendrick will be on campus weekly to engage with students, staff, faculty as well as the community through class visits and special workshops and events. Kendrick will give an artist talk on Tuesday, January 25 at 6 PM in Flagler’s Solarium. This event is free and open to the public.

Through color-rich paintings and multimedia installations, Kendrick examines contemporary spectatorship and the power of language as it relates to perceptions of and about black women, through the lens of the oppositional gaze. The oppositional gaze, penned by author bell hooks, “is one which cultivates a power to look, enabling black female spectators to document what they see and construct their own dialogue with their own voice.” Kendrick’s subjects stare back at the viewer and at one another, challenging inherited perceptions, historical prejudice, and contemporary assumptions. The artist notes, “The subject becomes the spectator as opposed to the spectacle through the transformative power of looking/seeing…the oppositional gaze. The images and experiences honor black women’s humanness to encourage empathy through both connection and confrontation.” Much of Kendrick’s work evolves from historical research, and during her residency, the artist will explore the connection between the Negro baseball leagues, including the Cuban Giants who played in St. Augustine, and the Hotel Ponce de Leon, current-day Flagler College. In addition, Flagler College will partner with Fort Mose Historic State Park to organize art workshops for area K-12 schools, in conjunction with their annual event Flight to Freedom. The artist’s research and engagement with some of the Black historical sites of St. Augustine will inform a new body of work for an exhibition to be held at CEAM in November 2022.

Kendrick’s impressive body of work and her commitment to a community-based practice coalesce with the ethos of the CEAM Artist Residency.

Kendrick’s work has been included in solo and group exhibitions at venues such as Yellow House, Jacksonville; Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, Jacksonville; Florida State College at Jacksonville; Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Museum, Port Elizabeth, South Africa; New Orleans African American Museum; and the Ritz Theater and Museum, Jacksonville, among others. She is the recipient of the Jackie Cornelius Art Residency (Douglas Anderson School of the Arts), the Lift Every Student Artist-In-Residence, and the Community First Foundation Art Ventures Individual Artist grants. She is currently the Director of Education and Lead Visual Art Instructor at Jacksonville Arts & Music School, and in 2019 was named the Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville’s 2019 Art Educator of the Year. Kendrick maintains a studio at CoRK Arts District in Jacksonville, Florida.

The CEAM Artist Residency, in collaboration with Flagler College’s Department of Art & Design, is a regular program of artists-in-residence to engage in themes of place-making while collaborating with some aspect of St Augustine’s local community, the city’s significant and varied roles in American history, or its rich natural environment.

The CEAM Artist Residency is supported by a grant from the Dr. JoAnn Crisp-Ellert Fund at The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida.