You are invited to an Artist’s Talk: Ray Anthony Barrett in Conversation with Douglas Kearney.  Ray Anthony Barrett’s solo show of drawings, Word is Bond, presents twelve new ink on paper drawings.  His intricate tableaus depict anthropomorphically masked figures engaged in allegorical narratives.  In the satirical tradition of Lewis Carroll and the visual language of 19th Century political cartoons, Barrett's compositions include poetic texts that uses hip-hop vernacular to articulate an evolving mythology. Douglas Kearney is a poet, librettist, and a performer who has received several residencies, including from Cave Canem, in Brooklyn, NY and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation (RRF), Captiva Island, FL.  He was raised in Altadena, CA and teaches at CalArts in Valencia, CA. Douglas has been commissioned to write and teach ekphrastic poetry for the Weisman Art Museum (Minneapolis), SFMOMA, The J. Paul Getty Museum, and The Hammer.

Ray Anthony Barrett: Word is Bond is currently on view at the gallery through November 29th. 

The event is open to the public, but space is limited. Please RSVP by email to sarine@dianerosenstein.com

About the Artists:

 Ray Anthony Barrett (USA, b. 1980) received his BA from the University of Missouri, Columbia (2003) and his MFA from Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, Oregon (2011). This year, he was included in Another Cats Show, 356 Mission, Los Angeles, and Unsparing Quality (Curated by Farrah Karapetian), Diane Rosenstein.  Mr. Barrett participated in the Dakar Biennial, Dakar, Senegal (2010). Mr. Barrett lives and works in Los Angeles.

 Douglas Kearney (USA) received his MFA in writing from the California Institute of the Arts, where he currently teaches. Kearney’s third poetry collection, Patter (Red Hen Press, 2014) examines miscarriage, infertility, and parenthood. His second, The Black Automaton (Fence Books, 2009), was a National Poetry Series selection. He has received residencies/fellowships from Cave Canem, The Rauschenberg Foundation, and others. His works have appeared in a number of journals, including Poetry, nocturnes, Pleiades, The Boston Review, The Iowa Review, Ninth Letter, Washington Square, and Callaloo. Two of his operas, Sucktion and Crescent City, have received grants from theMAPFund. Sucktion has been produced internationally and Crescent City premiered in Los Angeles in 2012.