For Immediate Release August 28, 2024
Media Contact: Kate Taylor Davis | 202-321-2878 | ktdavis@pyramid-atlantic.org
ERRANTRY
Work by Alonzo Davis
Hyattsville, MD – Errantry shares Alonzo Davis’ explorations on paper over the last thirty years, juxtaposed with his newer large-scale mixed media constructions. Exhibited works include prints, collage, and sculpture.
Errantry opens Saturday, September 7th with a reception from 2- 4 pm (free, RSVP requested). The exhibition runs through October 6, 2024 in Pyramid’s Helen C. Frederick Gallery. Gallery hours are Wed & Thu, 10 – 8 pm and Fri – Sun, 10 – 6 pm. Pyramid is located at 4318 Gallatin Street, Hyattsville, Maryland 20781. For more information and an RSVP link, visit pyramidatlantic.org or call 301-608-9101.
The theme of errantry is interpreted in this exhibition as a form of wandering that includes a sacred motivation. It reflects Davis as a traveler of the physical world, an artist who migrates between several different media, and as an explorer of the depths of his subconscious. His inner travel, expressed through an intuitive, improvisational approach to abstract composition, is reflective of a lifetime of national and international journeying.
“My art choices and world views have been inspired by travel. I seek influences, cultural centers, energies, new terrain, and the power of both the spoken and unspoken. The magic of the Southwest United States, Brazil, Haiti, West Africa, and Asia have all penetrated my work. Southern California, my home for thirty years, has also had an indelible impact, and the colors and rhythms of the Pacific Rim continue to infiltrate,” remarks Davis about his work.
A native of Tuskegee, Alabama, Davis moved to Los Angeles in his teens. He earned degrees from Pepperdine College and Otis Art Institute. Influenced early on by the assemblagists, Davis experiments with a variety of mediums, techniques, and themes. In the late ‘60s, he and his brother Dale Davis opened the Brockman Gallery—the first in LA dedicated to African American art and artists. During the ’70s and early ’80s, Davis was a driver of the California mural movement. His Eye on ’84 is one of ten Olympic murals on the walls of the downtown Los Angeles Harbor Freeway. After leaving LA, Davis’ career includes overseeing Sacramento’s Percent-for-Art program, working at the San Antonio Art Institute, and teaching at Memphis College of Art, where he served as Dean from 1993 to 2002. In 2002, he moved to Maryland, establishing a vibrant studio practice that combines the local and the global as well as the personal and universal.
Image: Sacramento #2, 2022, Mixed media with bamboo on hollow door. Additional images available upon request.
ABOUT PYRAMID ATLANTIC
pyramidatlanticartcenter.org
Founded in 1981, Pyramid Atlantic is a nonprofit contemporary art center fostering the creative disciplines of papermaking, printmaking, and book arts within a collaborative community. We equip, educate, and exhibit in our historic Hyattsville home. Our vision is to create an artistic hub in Hyattsville that inspires and enables local, national, and international artists to create and innovate in our core disciplines; elevates the local arts and small business scene; and enhances the quality of life for artists and neighbors. We value artistic excellence, infrastructure for artists, hands-on experiences, and collaboration.