Interview by Rose Cannon
November 09, 2020
DAVID JOHNSON NIARI, currently living and working in Chicago, IL, makes drawings, paintings, and mixed media artworks. By referencing romanticism, grand-guignolesque black humor, and symbolism, his drawings reference post-colonial theory as well as the avant-garde or the post-modern and the left-wing democratic movement as a form of resistance against the logic of the capitalist market system. Niari’s works are based on formal associations made through labor-intensive processes that open a unique poetic vein. Multilayered images arise in such a way that the fragility and the instability of our seemingly certain reality are questioned.
FRAN JOY, a recipient of the Evanston Mayor’s Individual Artist of the Year Award, is known for her works depicting women issues and topics of social justice. Her subjects are wide-ranging, including intimate portraiture, ethereal figures, historical portrayals, ethnic masks, scenes of violent injustice, and cosmic vistas.
FRAN JOY is a visual artist, curator, designer, and life coach who grew up in a small town in Southern Illinois. but who subsequently has called New Orleans, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Evanston home, and who makes frequent visits to New York.
CANNON FINE ART GALLERY, LLC is a new Evanston entrepreneurial business owned and operated by Rose M. Cannon, June 2019 graduate of the Sunshine Enterprises Community Business Academy, Evanston, Illinois cohort.
Evanston Art Center’s nonprofit mission to foster the appreciation and expression of the arts among diverse audiences. It also fulfills its vision to be widely recognized as a dynamic art education and exhibition a center that encourages freedom of artistic expression and enriches cultural life.