The Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center announces two art exhibitions opening during Fort Myers Art Walk on Friday, June 2.
The Key To Creativity, a group show with a call to artists for themed submissions, will be on display in the downstairs Grand Atrium of the Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center. Upstairs in the Capital Gallery, an exhibit called My Family Anti–Autobiography by artist Natalya Kochak will be featured.
To highlight the SBDAC’s “Art Is Key” season, June’s juried art show, The Key To Creativity, asks participating artists to portray the key that unlocks their creativity. For some it can be a walk among nature, a sunset, meeting a new person, a conversation at a cafe. Or it can come from emotions on the other side of the spectrum, losing somebody, a breakup, depression, or moments when the artist encountered a creative block and found a way out of it.
For this year’s annual juried art show, the SBDAC will display selected works of all media of the numerous keys to creativity that artists discover, inspiring others who seek to better our world. Selected art will be exhibited in the Grand Atrium downstairs, and will be considered for $1,000 in prizes.
Natalya Kochak
Upstairs in the Capital Gallery, Natalya Kochak’s My Family Anti–Autobiography will be on display. Text, narrative, and image are rooted in individual and intrinsic cultural realities. Reading is Kochak’s safe place to attempt to learn about another person’s deepest thoughts and creativity. Reading is a place where minds merge to create vivid stories in color, but also a place that can become indoctrinated with cultural ideologies, where history can be shaded by non-truths and hypocrisy.
Kochak’s work seeks to break down narratives, taking apart disorienting dialogue in books and looking more closely at images from history. Using her own familial history, art history, and conventional history, Kochak contemplates a trajectory forward from a past where part of her family was southern enslavers, and part descended from Ukrainian immigrants, inspiring My Family Anti-Autobiography.
Kochak connected with Paula Whatley Matabane, a blood relative and the descendant of a slave woman and a white ancestor, and was given permission to use family photos to create a new, inclusive family. The artist tells her own story through the lens of a new author, seeking to break down the conventional thought around difficult stories and examining the complexities of being an American.
Both exhibitions open on June 2 from 6 – 10 p.m. DJ Dream Jay will play at Sidney’s on the Rooftop from 7 – 11 p.m.
The Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center is located at 2301 First St. in the historic downtown Fort Myers River District. For more information call 239-333-1933 or visit the website at www.sbdac.com
