Award-winning contemporary artist and St. Louis native John E. Rozelle is offering his paintings and collages in a two-day art sale to benefit North St. Louis Arts Council.
On Friday, November 1 from 4-8 p.m. and again Saturday, November 2 from 12-4 p.m., Rozelle is hosting the sale of his work at the Regional Arts Commission, 6128 Delmar in conference room B on the second floor. The original artwork ranges in price from $25 to $1,000.
Rozelle is associate professor emeritus in the drawing and painting department in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He received his bachelor of fine arts from Washington University, after defecting to visual art from his initial interest in engineering.
“The painter Manuel Hughes introduced me to the work of Romare Bearden in a class titled ‘Black Art’ when I was an engineering student,” Rozelle said. “Later, as I switched to visual arts, I became more acquainted with this wonderful work, and the drawings and watercolors were useful in digesting Picasso and other cubists.”
He went on to earn an a M.F.A. from Fontbonne University, with major emphasis in painting and minor concentration in sculpture. A fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem followed.
Before leaving St. Louis, Rozelle joined the Board of Directors of the North St. Louis Arts Council founded by his Washington University classmate, photographer Larry Clark. The council began in 1982 with the dual mission of bringing arts into the community and supporting African-American artists in the community.
Founded 31 years ago out of Walbridge School in Walnut Park by Clark and educator Mary Ferguson, the organization has provided performances, artists in residence, and art exhibits in schools, community centers and senior citizens homes and other venues throughout the city.
“The art sale is another expression of the North St. Louis Arts Council’s vision of ‘bringing you and art together,’” Rozelle said.
Rozelle will share proceeds from the art sale with the North St. Louis Arts Council to continue its programming for youth and adults.
As for the work itself, it is mostly mixed media, a medium that Rozelle finds conducive to “object-making practices” common to Africa and the Diaspora.
“I share this mixed media experience with many other artists, and it can be found in abundance among African-American artists,” Rozelle said.
“In some societies, magical powers or mystical properties are often bestowed on what appears to be, to the uninitiated, apparently unrelated objects. I try to find spiritual connections in this object-making. African sensibilities are used in the presentation of contemporary social/political concerns, much like objects in use in African societies where traditional practices exist today.”
A prolific painter and collagist, Rozelle has been awarded top honors and his work is housed among various museum, private and corporate collections.
For more information about the North St. Louis Arts Council, contact Larry Clark at 636-346-3422 or Mary Ferguson at maryferguson518@gmail.com.
