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Emma Amos: 2006

June 8, 2006- July 22, 2006

Emma Amos

Flomenhaft

547 W 27th St

Working in overlapping series my paintings have included athletes like Muhammad Ali and Jackie Joyner Kersee, subjects of paintings in The Hero Series seen from a political and social standpoint, who inspire or even frighten me with their brilliant (or bizarre) behavior. This list includes the shaped canvases of Picasso and Great Grandpa (Thomas) Jefferson, and Katherine Dunham and Bill T. Jones, the great dancer/choreographers. Many of my paintings and prints are based on the African custom of printing commemorative fabrics to honor leaders and important people. I use this cloth and my own weavings to border most canvases.

A diptych from 1999, Take It Back and Work It Babe, features two young women considering their dreams at the turn of the century. The canvases are appreciations of the curator, Thelma Golden and my investment banker friend, Joanna Tan.

It is hard to remember that the future seemed unfathomable just before the turn of the century. A big painting, finished in 2000, was Let Me Off Uptown. Hip Hop had begun to get more real for me. I no longer saw it as an assault on jazz, but as a new language which was reaching people globally.

The year 2000 also included the Hair Series, a group of five oil-on-linen canvases with African fabric borders and embroidered titles. The Andy Warhol-plus-Fernand Leger painting called Tribal Headdresses -- Twentieth Century is bordered with an African fabric repeat of braided hair styles. The golden locks represent dyed dreds. Warhol in one of his wigs is drawn from newspaper photographs and the memory of meeting him and witnessing his vacant stare.

Oversized prints were made with master printer Kathy Caraccio. Baby, a diptych depicting a woman with her back turned to her pleading lover is printed on velvety fabric with lithography inks using handcut individual relief plates with African fabric borders.

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Location map  Gallery Flomenhaft Address 547 W 27th St, #308 New York (Chelsea) NY, 10001 United States Phone 212-268-4952 Fax 212-268-4953 Hours Tue-Sat 10:30-5 Nearby: All 28 galleries at 547 W 27th St

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