Notice: They graciuosly extended the exhibition another month until June 30th, .
The Visiting Artists Series African-American Cultural Center University of Illinois at Chicago
Solo Art Exhibit “Passion Fruit: The Other Chicago Art Movement”
Exhibitor Turtel Onli
Dates May 2 to May 31, 2011
8:30 a.m. to 4:45 p.m.
Monday through Friday
Location Addams Hall, Room 207
830 South Halsted street
Opening Reception May 6, 2011
5:00 - 8:00 p.m.
Addams Hall, Room 207
Reception lecture “Passion Fruit: The Other Chicago Black Movement”
Lecturer / Rhythmistic Artist Turtel Onli M.A.A.T.
Lecture 6:00 - 6:40 p.m.
Discussion 6:40 - 7:00 p.m.
Hors d’oeuvres 5:00 - 6:00 p.m.
7:00 - 8:00 p.m.
Description Turtel Onli’s exhibit
“Passion Fruit: The Other Chicago Black Movement”
is a collection of watermelon themed images, posters, photographs and original artworks that explores the American watermelon, not as a fruit, but a former symbol of racial stereotyping that needed to be transformed into a positive cultural icon.
The exhibit also pays tribute to the youthful Chicago based Black Arts Guild (BAG) that Turtel Onli founded in 1970 and directed until 1978.
BAG featured members like Jim Smoote, Obie Creed, Dalton Brown,the late Kenneth Hunter and Espi Frazier when they were all college students in art with immense talent, yet often denied options due to being considered “too young” in professional and Black cultural circles.
This self sufficient guild not only helped to launch their careers but adopted the Red, Black & Green watermelon as its logo and initiated a creative battle to change the negative applications of watermelon related images into a positive and creative symbol.
Several of its members were featured in exhibitions at the Younger Gallery in the 1980s as well as exhibits held nationally at several universities. A BAG reunion retrospective show was held in 1991 at the Prairie Avenue Gallery. Although BAG was disbanded in the summer of 1978, most of the artists are very active in the arts to this day. Onli morphed this philosophy to the growing Black Age movement.
Biography
Onli is a creative artist whose career has touched upon a variety of disciplines in fine and applied visual art.
He has been an art therapist, educator and illustrator. He has also distinguished himself in painting, drawing, illustration, publishing, fashion and multimedia production.
Onli earned a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts and Masters in Art and Art therapy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
He studied in Paris at the Sorbonne and the Centre Pompidou.
He has exhibited in France, and the United States. He is a four-time Visiting artist at the University of Illinois.
Onli has been an illustrator for the Rolling Stones, Motown, Mode Avant Garde Magazine, and Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
His work is in many collections including those of the Cool Globes Public Art, the Chicago Children’s Museum, Johnson Publishing Company, Alice Coltrane, the Miles Davis Estate and the DuSable Museum of African-American History.
His work was selected for presentation at Festac 1977: The second World Festival of Black and African Art and Culture in Lagos, Nigeria.
In 2007, he published a book of Rhythmistic artwork titled ”No Evils.”
Onli formerly taught at Columbia College, he currently teaches Art and Graphic Design at the Chicago Public Schools, and he is an adjunct Professor of Drawing and Art Appreciation at the Harold Washington College.
Cost Free
Who May Attend Open to art collectors, curators, the academic community and the public
posted by Word! at 8:54 AM
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