#Gullah #techspressionist artist Verneda Lights created this self-portrait which depicts her as a modern day medicine woman, in homage to her Black and Indigenous Low Country Heritage.
PORT ROYAL, SC, July 15, 2021 — Emerging artist Verneda Lights believes that “Art is a medicine, and medicine is an art.” This is the driving philosophy behind her latest exhibition, Gullah Me, which opens August 6 at the BASEcamp Gallery.
The exhibit stands at the crossroads of techspressionist, Afrosurreal, and traditional fine art. It reveals the artist’s quest to find insight and healing as she cared for her elderly parents and younger brother. Lights gives vibrant and poignant expression to the realities of sickness and grief. She accomplishes this by infusing her work with several layers of dualism. These dualisms include art and medicine, and tradition and technology. Like her artwork, Lights bridges two worlds. For example, she is a published poet, and practiced medicine for 20 years before turning to art full-time.
Gullah Me exists within this realm of juxtaposition and dualism. Traditional Gullah art uses the application of paint to a physical canvas. But, Lights created Gullah Me on an electronic canvas, using digital instruments. The result? A techspressionist, post-Gullah visual and emotional experience. Furthermore, Gullah Me melds memory, family, and healing while challenging traditional notions of art.
Gullah Me Uses Portraiture to Tell the Artist’s Story
Lights further shifts the landscape of post-Gullah art. For example, her work focuses on faces, which are not a part of historic Gullah art tradition. In her hands, portraiture finds its place at the intersection of traditional art and technology. There, it becomes a powerful tool for storytelling and gaining insight into the human psyche.
Visitors to the exhibit can experience this merging of the analog and digital firsthand. Scannable QR codes alongside framed art prints allow visitors to go online to read more about, and buy, Lights’ artwork.
The full 18-work solo exhibit runs from August 6 to September 30th, at the BASEcamp Gallery of the Beaufort Digital Corridor, located at 500 Carteret Street, Beaufort, South Carolina. Seven works by emerging artist Verneda Lights are currently on display in the space, offering a sneak preview of her solo exhibit.
About Emerging Artist, Verneda Lights
Verneda Lights is Gullah and a native South Carolinian. Her artwork has received several awards and distinctions, including being juried as a finalist in the 2003 Boston CyberArts Festival.
The“Suffra-Jetting” exhibit at Chicago’s Woman Made Gallery recently featured her work. Other exhibits include: the Occupy Museum’s group exhibit at the Whitney Biennial, and the Edward M Kennedy Institute. Lights is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
In 2001, she founded what is now known as E-graphX Omnimedia, a design firm and business consultancy, which received the British Airways’ Face-to-Face award.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Lights put her creative and business acumen into developing two product lines featuring art-inspired face masks, accessories, and women’s apparel:The Bryn Mawr Collection and Jennylights Designz. Proceeds from the product lines are being donated to her alma mater, Bryn Mawr College.
ENDS For media inquiries, contact E-graphX Omnimedia at info@gullahme.com or (843) 476-6168.
