Artist-in-Residence (Fall 2023): Graeme Mortimer Evelyn - Foundation for Spirituality and the Arts

Artist-in-Residence Graeme Mortimer Evelyn Charleston, SC | Fall 2023 Graeme Mortimer Evelyn is a multimedia visual artist, musician, and curator. He has developed a reputation for creating work that is situated in places of worship, municipal buildings, and sites of memory that reorient these settings and philosophies by engaging input from the local community as a self-described “bridge-builder.” He was raised Baptist-Pentecostal alongside Rastafarianism, later converting to Buddhism, and his spiritual experiences deeply inform his practice, as does his synesthesia. His intention is that his art acts as a catalyst, attracting new audiences to engage in meaningful dialogues surrounding art and art-making. His artistic process considers all stakeholders’ needs and aspirations to enable nuanced forms of sharing specific public spaces, especially sacred spaces and houses of worship. Based in London and of Jamaican heritage, he has produced a varied body of work commenting on cultural social identity, the politics of historical entanglements, and the psychological sensitivities involved in creating relevant work for spiritual spaces. He describes these narratives forming “when fragments of relation, memory, society, identity, and modernity, which seem disparate at first, come together to form a whole.” In his Charleston studio, Evelyn continued his drawing practice, and during his time in Charleston he also composed a reflective text that articulates a framework for how artists and institutions might engage sacred spaces for making site-specific work, as well as ways in which spiritual leaders and houses of worship can instigate collaborations with artists to support the creation of contemporary art. He engaged in research, dialogue, and teaching while in Charleston, working with local faith communities and College of Charleston students. About the artist: Graeme Mortimer Evelyn’s varied body of work comments on cultural identity, politics, and language. He describes these narratives forming “when fragments of relation, memory, society, identity, and modernity, which seem disparate at first, come together to form a whole.” His works have been displayed and collected in Princeton University Center for African American Studies, Cornell University, Kensington Palace, The Royal Commonwealth Society, Museum in Docklands, Gloucester Cathedral, Watershed, and M-Shed Bristol. About the artist: Graeme Mortimer Evelyn’s varied body of work comments on cultural identity, politics, and language. He describes these narratives forming “when fragments of relation, memory, society, identity, and modernity, which seem disparate at first, come together to form a whole.” His works have been displayed and collected in Princeton University Center for African American Studies, Cornell University, Kensington Palace, The Royal Commonwealth Society, Museum in Docklands, Gloucester Cathedral, Watershed, and M-Shed Bristol. A multi-media visual artist, musician, and curator, Evelyn has developed a reputation for creating work that is situated in municipal buildings, sites of memory and places of worship that subvert these settings and philosophies. His intention is that his art acts as a catalyst – attracting new audiences to seek alternative dialogues and challenging questions to enable the democracy of public space. His subversion of the institution does not stop there, as his works often reflect that ‘institution” denotes systems, memorial, edifice, myth, belief, and popular opinion. Many of the commissioned project work engages with contested histories and heritage, which has often required detailed archival research and an acute sensitivity to collective social issues and ideas. This process is challenging and thought-provoking for both artist and audience, causing to question the essence of what brings people into a conversation with a work of contemporary art. His use of detailed in-depth subject research creates the framework and give context to his experimental use of varied and diverse mediums, such as the 55min video essay The Two Coins: Meditations on Trade (2007). This poignant, factual and objective work was filmed staging imagined historical reenactments within UNESCO heritage sites and locations in Ghana, Mali, Malawi, and the UK, documenting the dormant history of the Trans – Atlantic Slave Trade as silent meditation. In 2009, Evelyn was commissioned by M-shed (Museum of Bristol) to subvert historical record. The result of extensive research and an old Chinese gambling table – the museum acquired the large painted relief sculpture, Reading the Riot (Act), a permanent work on display for their contemporary art collection. It is an uncompromising and challenging statement on the long history of British public dissent. Unveiled in 2011; the year of unprecedented rioting in London, Europe, and the Middle East Reading the Riot (Act) became strangely prophetic In 2011, Evelyn was Artist-in-Residence at St. Stephen’s Church Bristol, commissioned to create a large scale permanent contemporary altarpiece, the Reconciliation Reredos. Set within one of the oldest churches in Bristol, historically significant as the harbour church that blessed every merchant slave vessel before their voyage; the Reconciliation Reredos is a contemporary artwork of universal reconciliation, that responds to the church’s past, reflects the voices of the city today while representing the potential of the future. The work has established Evelyn as the first-ever British Jamaican Artist to complete such a commission in Europe. The Reconciliation Reredos was recently cited within the Oct 2023 Historic England UK Govt commissioned report, as an example of institutional best practice for responses to contested historical memorials and art works. He also presented the exclusive solo exhibition Out of Many, One at the Jamaica High Commission during the London2012 Olympics and Jamaica 50 and was the guest curator of contemporary Jamaican fi