Twilight - EJ Montgomery
Twilight, E. J. Montgomery

About the Work

From the Artist

For many years I have explored the role of memory and memorials in fashioning human history and identity in my art. My photographs and present abstracted artistic explorations dramatically portray configurations and coding processes of memory.

They represent memory as a template in which the mind stores cherished and sensitive experiences of people, places, and events. My art often contains calligraphic marks, strokes, swirling lines, language overlays of varied materials and colors, shadows and atmospheric conditions, and naturalistic formations in nature, such as trees, water and rocks.

My photographs offer glimpses of urban and rural landscapes and lifestyles of people of color today. Each work is titled and hopefully that adds to a greater understanding and discussion of the art between artist and viewer.
—Excerpted from http://galeriemyrtis.net/evangeline-j-montgomery-statement/, accessed 7-5-2021

E. J. Montgomery's Configurations of Memory print series is a culmination of a life's journey. Her works are articulations of a soul who has found peace and solace in a world revisited with turmoil. E. J. offers glimmers of her inner sanctum through poetic interpretations of earth, air, and land in an impressionistic style that resonates with a vocabulary, subtle and languid. 

Many of the prints are highly personalized renditions of landscapes, foliage, and seasons intended to seduce and, like the sirens, exude melodic ululations. Montgomery's work, which serves as windows through which the viewer is invited to reinvestigate the resonant beauty of nature, functions on multiple levels. From a distance, as if one is excavating an archeological site, the overall surface does not reveal the intricacies evident upon close scrutiny. Dynamic interrelationships between mass, marks, and color exist within each print.

Montgomery's haven has no walls or clear boundaries; it evidently exists within the context of the cosmos. If memories are intended to fade, Montgomery defies the tendency and taps into an omniparous reserve in which the vast conscious and unconscious matrix of remembering is given visual form.
—Excerpted from https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/parish-gallery-records-17390/series-1/box-2-folder-38, accessed 7-5-2021

About the Artist

E. J. Montgomery

Painter, printmaker, photographer, and curator E. J. (Evangeline J.) Montgomery was born in New York City. She studied with local craftsmen and worked for African American designer Thomas Usher. Montgomery received a BFA from the California Colleg...

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