Ep 084: Intention & Exploration with NCMA Curator Amanda Maples & Visual Artist Shaun Richards / by Jackie Sanders

Finding A Creative Voice In The Gray Areas Of Your Identity

On this episode we have two guests, North Carolina Museum of Art Curator Amanda Maples and NC visual artist Shaun Richards. In this conversation we discuss using curatorial work to highlight the voice of others, embracing momentum in your creative practice, finding a creative voice in the gray areas of your identity, and normalizing alternative income streams to support your income fluctuating art career.

 
 

Shaun Richards | Raleigh, NC

Visual Artist

Artist Bio:

Shaun is a visual artist based in Raleigh NC who focuses on paintings, mixed media, and assemblage. Originally from Georgia, he has traveled extensively and has been included in numerous exhibitions throughout the Southeast, including the North Carolina Museum of Art, The Greenhill Center, and CAM-Raleigh.

Shaun’s work centers on figurative work and contrasting applications of paint, the use of narrative, and investigates the use of signifiers that is integral to his work. Conceptually, he is concerned with human incentives, artifice, and the dissection of classifications and assumptions—why we do what we do, and how this is reflected within society.

Artist Statement:

As an artist and painter whose work centers figuration and contrasting moves in paint, the use of narrative, and an investigative use of signifiers is integral to my work. Conceptually, I am concerned with human incentive, artifice, and the dissection of classifications and assumptions —why we do what we do, and how this is reflected within society. Currently, my work impresses upon the viewer a sense of fragmentation and displacement. Placed against a black and white or tonal background, it visualizes an amplified polarization within American society and political discourse, specifically the reliance on binary categorizations: Right or Left, white or BIPOC, straight or LGBTQ+, privilege vs exclusion, and legal vs individual sovereignty over one’s body. Formally, I use both oil and acrylic paints, mixed media collaged backgrounds, and a variety of surfaces and supports such as mylar, panel, and canvas. I also incorporate the use of stencils, abstract expressionist moments in contrast to figuration.

Stay Connected With Shaun:

Amanda Maples | Raleigh, NC

Curator of Global African Arts at the North Carolina Museum of Art (Raleigh, NC)

Artist Bio:

Amanda Maples is the curator of African Art for the North Carolina Museum of Art. Previously she was a Curatorial Fellow in African and Indigenous American Art at Stanford University. She has co-authored various publications and has worked with many prestigious institutions including the Smithsonian and Yale University. Amanda received her Ph.D. in Visual Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz and her research focus is on African and diaspora arts, and the politics of museum display.

Articles & Exhibitions:


Stay Connected with Amanda:

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