Art Experience
Featuring contemporary artists Ja’Tovia Gary and Lauren Kelley.
2024 DBFF Art Director Vicki Meek
Immerse yourself in some of the best artistic showcases of Black cinema, music, spoken word, art and more. See the highlights, film guide, and “festival experience” paths at dentonbff.com/film-festival
OTHER ART EVENTS AT #DBFF24
Ja’Tovia Gary & Lauren Kelley TWU Exhibits
Monday January 22nd – February 19th
10am – 4pm
East| West Galleries @ TWU | 302 Pioneer Circle, Denton, TX 76204
Lauren Kelley CoLab Exhibit
Monday January 22nd – February 19
10am – 4pm; Free
UNT CoLab | 207 N Elm St, Denton, TX 76201
Artist Talk w/ Lauren Kelley
Friday January 26th
4pm; Free
UNT CoLab | 207 N Elm St, Denton, TX 76201
Feature Artist: Ja'Tovia Gary
In her short film Quiet As It’s Kept (2023), Ja’Tovia Gary captures the essence of Toni Morrison’s first novel, The Bluest Eye (1970). A study of the White gaze, how it’s absorbed into self-hate, and how that hate is projected back into the world. The work, narrated in the third person by a nine-year-old girl named Claudia, is intricate in structure, beautiful in prose, and unapologetic in its message. (C.M.Watts review, 2023).
Gary employs various cinematic techniques and visual cues from the story to create a heightened eerie awareness. Gary locates colorism, classism, and the spectacle of privilege, reminding us how they continue to shape our reality.(hyperallergic.com,2023)
Feature Artist: Lauren Kelley
Lauren Kelley is an interdisciplinary artist who employs a wry wit when commenting on matters of innocence, race, and girlhood. At the core of her practice is a series of short, stop-motion animated videos that combine clay-mation with her brown, plastic dolls. For Kelley, dolls are the vehicle for navigating the tiny spaces existing between luxuries and necessities; palatable and unsavory sentiments; Black and non-black worlds. Currently she is developing a body of work
inspired by mid-century American history and the grotesque charm of Todd Haynes’ 1987 cult classic, “Superstar:The Karen Carpenter Story.” Her work has been exhibited at the Studio Museum of Harlem, Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College and at PPOW in New York.
She is a Creative Capital grantee and currently serving as director of the Texas Institute for the Preservation of History and Culture on the campus of Prairie View A&M University.
