"Blow Like Magic In Their Face And Vanish," organized by James Sterling Pitt (online exhibition)

a figure in profile, face turned to the right, a cigarette dangling from their mouth, arm upraised.

About the Exhibition

One afternoon in March, 2011 I sat with Billy White at NIAD. We drew collaboratively, he would depict a character and narrative, I would write his words like subtitles. While drawing one of his characters, The Unknown, Billy said, “blow like magic in their face and vanish.”

In curating this exhibition, I am acknowledging disability as a superpower. I am selecting work as talisman, each object/image as a holder of magic. In the spirit of my time with Billy, I see this exhibition as a continuation of deep, personal communication which extends to a collective one. Conversation, storytelling, embracing a spirit as “there is no invisible disguise that lasts all day.” But for a moment, this moment, that moment.

About James Sterling Pitt

James Sterling Pitt’s artistic process is one of exploring and honoring the often abstract and unknown realms of memories and their emotional counterparts. Having suffered a traumatic brain injury in a car accident over ten years ago, this way of working began as a tool to help cope with short-term memory loss and difficulties with language. Through a process of drawing and sculpture, he was able to give form to the less concrete and harder to articulate aspects of the mind, such as something sensed or a fading memory.

Pitt earned his BA from the University of New Mexico and his MFA from Mills College. Pitt’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions in San Francisco, Santa Fe, Boston, and Berlin, and group exhibitions throughout the Bay Area and New York. His work is in the permanent collections of the SFMOMA, BAM/PFA, Blanton Museum and numerous private and public collections. He is represented by Ratio 3. He is currently working on an exhibition for Blunk Space that will open in January, 2023.

You might also like...

View all
1 10
View all