Kori Newkirk

The Gallery of Art will feature a solo exhibition with sculptures, paintings and beaded pictorial curtain works by LA artist Kori Newkirk. After working with unusual painting materials such as antifreeze and glycerin soap during his undergraduate studies, Newkirk later began incorporating various cultural signifiers of beauty and camouflage most often associated with African Americans.

Although Newkirk grew up in a small college town in central New York, he is now counted among the well-known Los Angeles-based artists, who look at and re-cast that vast, magical, catastrophe-bound, man-made tourist mecca city. What makes his work different and so compelling is the exquisite union between subject and materials – plastic pony beads, artificial hair, and hair pomade. As part of his JCCC exhibition, Newkirk will create a large-scale wall drawing utilizing hair pomade. The Gallery Guide essay will be written by Olukemi Ilesanmi, curatorial assistant, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis MN.

Kori Newkirk was born in 1970 in the Bronx, New York City and currently lives in Los Angeles. In 1993, Newkirk received his BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago; in 1997, he received his MFA from the University of California, Irvine. His work has recently been featured in highly regarded shows such as One Planet Under A Groove: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art, Bronx Museum, Bronx, NY; Snapshot, UCLA/Armand Hammer Museum, Los Angeles and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL; and Freestyle, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, and Santa Monica Museum of Art. In June, the James Van Damme Gallery, Brussels, Belgium will host a one-person exhibition for Newkirk. Newkirk currently lives and works in Los Angeles and exhibits with The Project, New York and Los Angeles.