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Jan Wade: COLORED ENTRANCE

Past exhibition
2 May - 22 June 2024 New York
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Overview
'Mama Story', 1996
'Mama Story', 1996

Richard Saltoun Gallery New York presents its inaugural solo exhibition COLORED ENTRANCE, by African-Canadian artist Jan WADE (b. 1952), on view between 2 May - 22 June 2024 to coincide with New York Frieze Week. 

 

COLORED ENTRANCE is Wade's first solo exhibition in the United States, on the occasion of the acquisition of her work, Epiphany, by the National Gallery of Canada and her retrospective Soul Power opening at the Art Gallery of Hamilton, Ontario in June 2024. Previously touring from Vancouver Art Gallery (2022), this marked the first solo show by a Black woman artist in the museum's ninety-year history.

 

Wade's practice explores Black identity in a post-colonial landscape from a deeply personal perspective, drawing from her heritage, African diasporic spiritual practices, and the history of Southern Slave Cultures. She was born in 1952 in Hamilton, Ontario, to a Black Canadian father with familial origins in the American South and a Canadian mother of European descent. Raised in a relatively segregated but close-knit community, Wade's formative years were heavily influenced by her local African Methodist Episcopal Church, Southern African-American culture and aesthetics from the perspectives of her paternal grandmother and great-grandmother. Although it stems from personal experience, Wade's work seeks to articulate a new understanding of her ancestors' traumas and the discrimination they themselves suffered. 

 

Highlights will include a new iteration of Wade's most iconic work Epiphany (1994-), an installation comprising crosses made of found pieces of wood and embellished with thrift store finds and objects connected African-American culture, acting as a monument to cultural survival and perseverance. Exhibited at the 1st Johannesburg Biennale AFRICUS (1995), and included in Wade's touring retrospective Soul Power, this will be the first time Epiphany is shown in the USA. A previous iteration of this work has recently been acquired by the National Gallery of Canada for their permanent collection. 


Also on view will be a new series of Wade's ongoing Memory Jugs, which she was inspired to make after seeing an archival photograph of memory jugs placed on Slave cemeteries in the American South. These funerary vessels were traditionally adorned with fragments-broken china, glass shards-and items beloved by the departed. Unlike historical memory jugs, Wade's pieces incorporate text as well as imagery in addition to found objects, rooted in the oral traditions of her African Methodist church. These vessels will be exhibited alongside early paintings such as Mama Story (1996), and Women Cometh Forth Like a Flower (1995) which illustrate Wade's enduring focus on the matriarchy of her family.


The show will also feature works from Wade's decade-long project Breathe (2004-2022), a series of 70 embroidered canvases in abstract patterns that are informed by traditional Southern American, Gee Bend quilting techniques, and dedicated to the Black Lives Matter movement. The series is titled after the last words of Eric Garner, who was killed in a prohibited chokehold by a police officer in 2014. The repetition echoes the relentless recirculation of the spectacle of Garner's death, which was captured on video, pointing to the ongoing pattern of injustice and anti-Blackness. 


Additionally on view will be Wade's pastel-coloured skull drawings titled Boneheads (2001-), which evolved out of her interest in both the iconographies of the African Methodist church and the Cuban diasporic religion of Santería, delving into universal themes such as death and grief alongside poignant contemporary issues around environmental and racial politics.

 

On view between 2 May – 22 June 2024.

 


 

Jan Wade: Colored Entrance in the press:

 

New New York Venue with Solo on Jan Wade | Widewalls

Moving from Memorial to Rebirth | Whitewall Magazine

Dual Outing in New York | Artnet

 


 

For press enquiries, please email sonja@richardsaltoun.com

For sales enquiries, please email sales@richardsaltoun.com

 

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Works
  • Jan WADE Untitled (Epiphany), 1996-2024 Acrylic, wood, found objects Installation of 26 crosses 305 x 280 cm 120 x 110 in Dimensions variable
    Jan WADE
    Untitled (Epiphany), 1996-2024
    Acrylic, wood, found objects
    Installation of 26 crosses
    305 x 280 cm
    120 x 110 in
    Dimensions variable
  • Jan WADE Mama Story, 1996 Acrylic on board in artist's frame Framed 72 x 56.5 cm
    Jan WADE
    Mama Story, 1996
    Acrylic on board in artist's frame
    Framed 72 x 56.5 cm
  • Jan WADE Boneheads, 2004 Ink, pencil and crayon on paper 34.3 x 25.3 cm
    Jan WADE
    Boneheads, 2004
    Ink, pencil and crayon on paper
    34.3 x 25.3 cm
    $ 2,500.00
  • Jan WADE Wade in the Water, 2018/19 Acrylic, wood, found objects and clay vessel 64 x 28 x 28 cm 25'' x 11'' x 11''
    Jan WADE
    Wade in the Water, 2018/19
    Acrylic, wood, found objects and clay vessel
    64 x 28 x 28 cm
    25'' x 11'' x 11''
Installation Views
  • Dsc 8325
  • Dsc 8313
  • Dsc 8308
  • Dsc 8523
News
  • Jan Wade

    Jan Wade

    Art Gallery of Hamilton April 19, 2024
    Jan Wade 's large-scale retrospective, Soul Power opens at the Art Gallery Hamilton, Ontario in June 2024, touring from Vancouver Art Gallery (2022). The exhibition...
    Read more
Events
  • Esther New York

    Esther New York

    Jan Wade 1 - 4 May 2024
  • Jan Wade

    Jan Wade

    Brunch & Artist-led tours 4 May 2024

Artist page

  • Jan Wade

    Jan Wade

Back to Past exhibitions

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