Jeffery Kent: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Painter Jeffrey Kent - founder of Subbasement Artist Studios and one of Baltimore’s leading African American gallery owners - breaks down society’s articles of manhood, from cowboy politicians and corporate boardrooms to drug corners and comic superheroes. Bold paintings—often on rough shaped canvases or found materials—burst with information and expressive color, and are covered with the artist’s signature backwards handwriting. The twisted father/son relationship of snipers John Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo is inseparable from the media hype on which they fed. Emotionally vulnerable superheroes illustrate the masks that masculinity demands. The words “brown nosed” are scrawled over a shadowy businessman, suggesting America’s corporate pecking order, where status is based on winning points with the guy on top of you, or the guy on top of him. Kent draws urgency from the crisis of the African American male, making a compelling argument for a top to bottom reevaluation of what it means to be a man in America. He is joined Wed Jan 23 for a gallery talk with Lamarr Darnell Shields, President & Co-Founder of Urban Leadership Institute, mentoring urban teens to become adult leaders.