Artist/photographer/graphic designer Gail Patrice Mallory will present the Community Artists’ Collective’s second ARTrepreneurship livestream workshop Saturday, January 16, from 3 to 4:30 p.m.
Tune in to the workshop on ZOOM.
“Art and creativity come naturally to me,” Mallory said. “It’s a way to express how I view the community and its effect on my own self-perception.”
Her artwork began as a visual representation of herself, desperately searching for the beauty within, she admitted. She describes how she suffered for many years from insecurities, long before she realized she was an artist. Her insecurities were based on her appearance, which is one of the reasons that lips and noses were exaggerated in many of her earlier pieces. Art was more than art for Gail; art was an escape, a therapist and an unconditional friend.
She eventually began to realize that she was no longer looking for herself in the artwork. With each piece she created the artwork became an instrument to uplift her culture, community and other women with similar challenges. Over time her creations began to take on a life of their own, and each piece seemed to never conceptually end the way it started.
Her process always begins with two questions: first, can she create this concept with thread as opposed to paint and secondly, who is this artistic message intended for? From there she selects the threads that complement each other and afterward allow her creative energy to bring her vision to reality.
Mallory, who is originally from Indianapolis, Ind., received a bachelor of science degree in computer graphics and multimedia development from the Purdue School of Engineering and Technology and an MBA from Prairie View A & M University.
In Houston where she now lives, Mallory has participated in the Citywide African American Artist Exhibition (University Museum of Texas Southern University) sponsored by The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2017, 2019); in several group exhibitions at the Bombay Sapphire Artisan Series (2018); and the African American Artist Exhibition at the University of Houston Clear Lake (2020). She held her first solo exhibition “My Journal My Journey” in the Bert Long Jr. Gallery at the Houston Museum of African American Culture. Recently, she displayed works in the FOTOFEST Biennial 2020 at the Community Artists’ Collective and has works on display in the “Art of Soul” exhibition in Columbus, Ohio, at the National African American Museum Cultural Center.
Viewers can sign up for the free workshop on Eventbrite.
ARTrepreneurship Workshop Series is a program within the Community Artists' Collective Entrepreneurship Program designed to spotlight professional artists who will share their artistic journey and career path and describe what helped develop them into professional artists. The overall goal of the ARTrepreneurship Workshop Series is to provide insight into what it takes to achieve the level of a professional artist and how to prepare for the journey. The series is sponsored by H-E-B.