SOREN CHRISTENSEN TO PRESENT SOLO EXHIBITION BY DANIEL MINTER
The 4th solo gallery presentation for the artist in New Orleans;
Group work by gallery artists in the rear gallery.
NEW ORLEANS, La—Soren Christensen is pleased to present the Othered by Maine-based artist Daniel Minter. The show will feature a body of work produced during the artist’s 2018 residency at the art department of The University of Southern Maine. This series of congruent Black portraiture and landscapes references the Malaga Island story, a little-known piece of American history that the artist has spent the last decade exploring in his work, and exposing/illuminating that history for Maine residents and beyond.
Malaga’s story is one of survival and struggle of a mixed-race fishing community doomed by intolerance and forced out in the name of the “greater good.” Pressured by local officials and a biased press, the State of Maine purchased Malaga Island and ordered the inhabitants to leave by July 1, 1912. Buildings were removed, the schoolhouse relocated, and the bodies from the island’s cemetery exhumed and reburied at the Maine School for the Feeble-Minded, where several islanders were committed and later died. Malaga was never resettled and never became the summer tourist colony that locals had envisioned. But many Malaga descendants remained in the area, becoming a vital part of the communities that once shunned their ancestors.
Daniel Minter is a painter and illustrator. His paintings, carvings, block prints and sculptures have been exhibited both nationally and internationally at galleries and museums, including the Seattle Art Museum, Tacoma Art Museum, Bates College, Hammonds House Museum, Northwest African American Art Museum, Museu Jorge Amado and the Meridian International Center. Minter lived in Chicago and Brooklyn before moving to Portland, Maine where he now resides with his family. From his base in Maine, Minter uses his art as a tool for dialogue with his community. He is the co-founder and creative visionary of the Portland Freedom Trail. Minter serves on the board of The Ashley Bryan Center, The Illustration Institute and teaches at the Maine College of Art. He serves as board chair of The Quaglia Institute for Student Aspirations.
Minter has illustrated 11 children’s books, including Step Right Up; How Doc and Jim Key Taught the World about Kindness, and Ellen's Broom which won a Coretta Scott King Illustration Honor; Seven Spools of Thread: A Kwanzaa Story, winner of a Best Book Award from the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio; and The Riches of Oseola McCarty, named an Honor Book by the Carter G. Woodson Awards. He was commissioned in both 2004 and 2011 to create Kwanzaa stamps for the U.S. Postal Service.
The exhibitions will run from April 30th- May 28th, with the opening reception on Saturday, May 4th from 6:00-9:30 pm in participation with Jammin’ on Julia and the First Saturday Art Walk in the Arts District of New Orleans. The rear gallery features works by roster artists Dana Chapman, Michael Dickter, William Dunlap, Audra Kohout, and Thomas Swanston.
