About the Exhibition
In her mixed-media work, Ebony G. Patterson (Jamaican, born Kingston Jamaica 1981, lives Kingston, Jamaica, works Lexington, KY) investigates shifting and contradictory gender roles in Jamaican Dancehall culture. She explores contemporary notions of fashion and masculine beauty, considering practices like skin bleaching, eyebrow shaping, and flamboyant dressing that are common among gang culture. For her first solo exhibition in Chicago, Patterson considers the ramifications of the extraditing the Jamaican drug lord Christopher “Dudus” Coke this past summer. In 2009 the United States began requesting his extradition and in May 2010 the Government of Jamaica issued a warrant for Coke’s arrest. As a result the city of Kingston was placed under a state of emergency. 72 alleged “Dudus” supporters were killed while protesting his extradition. Mostly young men, these martyrs are the subjects of Patterson’s newest series.
Ebony G. Patterson (Jamaican, born Kingston, Jamaica 1981, works Lexington, KY) did her undergraduate work at the Edna Manley College for the Visual and Performing Arts in Kingston, Jamaica and earned her MFA in 2006 from the Sam Fox College of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. Ebony’s In 2007 her work was featured in the group exhibition Infinite Island: Contemporary Caribbean Art curated by Tumelo Mosaka at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Since her inclusion in our 2008 exhibition Boys of Summer, her work has been included in exhibitions at Kravets / Wehby and Praxis Gallery in New York, New Art Ways in Hartford, CT, the Santa Monica Art Museum, the French Alliance Foundation in Paris, the Fondation Clement in Martinique, and the National Gallery of Jamaica in Kingston, to name a few. Currently her work is on view in the National Biennial of Jamaica. Ebony is an Assistant Professor in the Painting Department at the University of Kentucky in Lexington.
Our 4th on the wall project!
Patterson’s installation Gully Godz in Conversation-Conversations Revised I, II and IIIcontinues through March 26th! Special thanks to The Commission of Wicker Park / Bucktown (SSA #33) for their support of our “on the wall” series!