- This event has passed.
Davion Alston: Another Bird of Paradise
12pm - 4pm
2020/2021 Working Artist Project
This round of Working Artist Projects was curated by Marcela Guerrero, Assistant Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Artist Talk
About the Exhibition
“Not necessarily knowing how to love, I collect thoughtfully like a bird of paradise and create out of the desire to be loved. I use still-life and assemblage to build worlds that reflect the constraints during this time of isolation and distance. This allows for my work to be more intimate, quiet, and collective.
Another Bird of Paradise is a nest of instilled moments from yester-years rush of events such as the health crisis, protests, and loss. I reproduce moments from past bodies of works to inform and collapse current realities. I then layer and interweave a sense of time that has passed through moments of fleeting motion and casts of elongated shadows. My memories are fragmented like windows of passing time or soft moments of stillness. I succumb and accept these works as a constant process of doing, undoing, and longing.
Currently my ideas have started exploring outward towards utopic themes such as the desire to gather whether it is to memorialize, protest, or celebrate. I question the reasons for us as humans to be in one unison striving for collective liberation.”
About Davion Alston
Davion K. Alston is a visual artist living and working in Atlanta, GA. He was born 1992 in Landstuhl, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany and grew up with Geechee-Gullah roots along the coast of Georgia. He received his BFA from the Welch School of Art and Design at Georgia State University. The 2020/2021 Working Artist Project Fellow is also a 2020/2021 International Center of Photography: Black Press Freedom Fund Recipient, a 2020/2021 Black Artist Fund Recipient, and a 2020/2021 Edge Award Finalist.
Alston’s recent work has been featured and reviewed in national and international publications such as the Aperture Foundation’s Aperture Magazine, The New York Times, Burnaway, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles, GUP Magazine, and New Art Examiner. His recent and upcoming exhibitions include Futures, 4 public installations within Belfast, Ireland, curated by Clare Gormley; the 2021 Atlanta Biennial: Of Care and Destruction, held at Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, and curated by Dr. Jordan Amirkhani & TK Smith; and the 2021 Swan Coach House Gallery Edge Award Finalist Exhibition in Atlanta, GA.
Above image detail of: Untitled (To Ahmaud), 2021, photograph and mixed media by Davion Alston
