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Black Art Project, March 2010

ESSENCE MAGAZINE, July 2009

UPSCALE MAGAZINE, July 2009

April Harrison Juried into Hampton University Museum ‘New Power Generation 2008’ Exhibition

April Harrison was recently juried into the Hampton University Museum’s ‘New Power Generation 2008’ exhibition. Two works by the artist were selected for inclusion in the prestigious exhibition, organized by the Hampton University Museum. The exhibition is described on the museum’s website as “a national competition for contemporary art by people of African descent. It is an opportunity for the museum to enhance its long-held reputation as a documenter of movements in the visual arts by focusing its attention on emerging and working artists who are creating new forms and charting new directions”. The exhibition which opened on Feb. 8, 2008, features 23 artists and 42 works and runs until July 26, 2008.

The museum is located in the historic Huntington Building, 11 Frissell Ave., on the campus of Hampton University. Admission is free.

Hours are 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday and noon-4 p.m. Sunday. Call 757-727-5308 or visit the museum's Web site at http://museum.hamptonu.edu/ for more information.

April Harrison’s exhibition featured in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, Friday June 22, 2007

April Harrison Included in Group Show at Morris Museum

Our Neighbors Collect:

African American Art

Morris Museum, Augusta, GA
September 8–October 29, 2006

Bessie Nickens
Hide and Seek 1990
Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, Georgia
Gift of Barbara Cohens

Working in cooperation with the Morris Museum's Friends of African American Art, the museum has assembled an exhibition representing work held in local private collections.

Many of America's most important African American artists have roots in the South—something that is often reflected in their work—and, early in the twentieth century, many of them became very influential. Limited resources often led them to develop multiple skills—as artists, educators, curators, critics, and entrepreneurs. Hale Woodruff, represented in the current exhibition by a wood-block print, exemplified this pioneering spirit from the time he arrived, in 1931, at Atlanta University, where he taught and created his own work for more than thirty years . Just as importantly, he also founded the Atlanta Annual, a competitive exhibition that was open to black artists nationwide. Those annuals provided important exposure for black artists, helped to improve African Americans' understanding of and appreciation for their own art, and led in part to Atlanta's reputation as a major art center.

Some black artists drew their inspiration from the folk culture of the region. Beverly Buchanan and Benny Andrews, both represented in the exhibition, characterize this. Others—including Mose T, Clementine Hunter, and Margaret Ramsey—are genuinely untutored artists who have drawn on and depicted folk visions and personal experiences. It is hardly surprising that so many African American artists have worked outside formal traditions, since so many were deprived of formal art training. Each has improvised highly individual symbols, forms, and techniques to convey his or her ideas and feelings.

A special feature of the present exhibition is Bessie Nickens's masterpiece Hide and Seek. A gift to the Morris Museum from Ms. Nickens's daughter, Barbara Cohens, the painting was featured in Walking the Log: Memories of a Southern Childhood, the last exhibition of her work held during her long, eventful life. Bessie Nickens died at the age of ninety-nine two long years ago, leaving an unfinished work on her easel. She still had stories to tell and the skills to tell them well.

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