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A collection of works by painter and monotype print artist Patricia Carter is on display through Sept. 25 at Lafayette's David A. Portlock Black Cultural Center, 101 McCartney St.
Two free, public events will be held Thursday, Sept. 19, in conjunction with the exhibition. Carter will give a noon lecture in room 108 of the Williams Center for the Arts. A reception for the artist will be held 5-7 p.m. in the Portlock Gallery.
Carter's use of figurative monotypes follows a tradition that began in the 17th century of painters using printmaking as a vehicle for expression, she says. The imagery in her early paintings and monotypes draws on the experiences of African American women living in the southern United States during the 1940s.
“I was especially fascinated by the paradoxical link that existed between the southern black maid as servant and surrogate mother of white children,” says Carter. “In my latest work, I explore the uniform as a constructor of identity and a mask of femininity. I place myself in the position of the maid. I use the acts of sweeping and burning as metaphors for transforming and revealing the true self.”
Carter studied painting at Luminous Workshop in Buffalo, N.Y., and monotype printing at Buffalo State College. Since 1993, she has participated in several juried shows in western New York, including Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Castellani Art Museum, Impact Women's Gallery, and Hallwalls Contemporary Art Museum. She received an honorable mention award from Nancy Weekly, Charles Cary Rumsey curator at Burchfield-Penney Art Center, for one of two works exhibited at Impact Women's Gallery's Covering/Uncovering national exhibition in 1995.
In June 1997, El Museo Francisco Oller Y Diego Rivera Gallery featured Carter in a solo exhibition. Her artwork was published by University of Buffalo Poetry Collection following a solo exhibition there in November 1997. She served as artist-in-residence at Edna Manley College of Visual Arts in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1998. In February 2000, she had a solo exhibition at Phoenix Downtown Magazine in Phoenix, Ariz. Her art is included in Burchfield-Penney Art Museum's permanent collection and private art collections in the U.S. and Canada.
Carter is an adjunct professor in the School of Landscape Architecture and Planning at Arizona State University and the department of architecture and planning at SUNY at Buffalo. She also teaches in the Art with Artists program conducted by Albright-Knox Art Gallery. She is a member of the Hallwallas Contemporary Art Center Board of Directors. Carter earned a bachelor's degree at Cornell University and a master's in urban and regional planning at University of California, Berkeley.