Archive: Arts & Entertainment

Aurora, New York— The Wells College String Room Gallery presents the exhibition 'Primer for Well Water,' a collaborative exhibition by artists Justin Randolph Thompson and Bradly Dever Treadaway.  The exhibition will be open from October 23 to December 3, 2014. The public is cordially invited to join the artists for a free opening reception and performance on Thursday, October 23, from 7:30 to 9:30 pm.

Justin Randolph Thompson and Bradly Dever Treadaway have collaborated over the past 15 years through the mediums of photography, installation, video and performance. Their collaboration revolves around ideas of cultural clash, generational divide, social hierarchies, the resonance of collective and personal identity and a legacy of spiritual ascension. Their upcoming String Room Gallery exhibition, "Primer for Well Water," is an installation and performance that examines the social cleansing and eroding powers of water.

Drawing its title from allusions to Robert P. T. Coffin's celebration of American Culture in his "Primer for America" and from Gwendolyn Brooks' poem "Primer for Blacks," the piece takes an interdisciplinary approach to collective and specifically documented identities from Afro American and Euro American inheritance. This exhibition will feature work from throughout their careers, and will include works completed on site in collaboration with Wells College students.

Justin Randolph Thompson is a sculptor and new media artist born in Peekskill, N.Y. Living between Italy and the US since 2001, he has exhibited internationally and participated in numerous residencies in the US and in Europe. His work explores the historic implications of triumph, victory and ascension by re-contextualizing references from Roman antiquity and mending these with aspects of African-American culture both past and present.

Bradly Dever Treadaway is a Brooklyn based artist and teacher utilizing photography, video, film and installation to emphasize socially conscious themes and self-awareness. He works as both a faculty member and the Digital Media Coordinator at the International Center of Photography in New York City. His work revolves around fleeting family histories visualized through domestic rituals and the loss of cultural tradition, aspiring to reunite present and past through visual metaphor.

Thompson and Treadaway's shared accolades include a Fulbright Fellowship and a Jerome Fellowship to Franconia Sculpture Park. The artists' work can be found in the collections of the Brooklyn Public Library, the Mobile Museum of Art and the Center for Photography at Woodstock.

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