The Circuitry of Joyce J. Scott (Joyce Scott): A Group Exhibition of Collaboration and Innovation

Visionary artist Joyce J. Scott works in a multitude of media and has had a profound influence on various communities of artists through her beaded sculpture, art jewelry, and more. Scott shapes her work through connections formed bead-by-bead, piece-by-piece, and thread-by thread. Circuitry, for Scott and this exhibition, is approached in four ways: through the construction of her pieces; as connection to the past; as hard-wiring to the national and global present; and finally, via Scott’s network of artists and friends. Scott and the other artists included in this exhibition push and expand the potentiality of what sculpture and wearable art can be, where they intersect, and how they affect each other. This exhibition forms a dialogue between ten of Scott’s exemplary beaded neck pieces placed in conversation with beaded, fiber and mixed media works by Sonya Clark, Oletha DeVane, Eve France, William Rhodes, and Teresa Sullivan.

Using beads and threads, Scott physically stitches together ideas and figures together within each piece to form a cohesive whole. Essentially, these connectors function as the veins that branch off and hold everything together within the system of one work. As she draws with her peyote-stitch, the webs between imagery act as dynamic stokes. In a similar approach to interwoven and intersected imagery, DeVane, Sullivan, and Rhodes use their respective media to represent personal histories, idols and other concepts in their own work.

About Joyce J. Scott

Scott, recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship in 2016, is a printmaker, weaver, sculptor, performance artist, and educator who lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland. Scott received her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and MFA from the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico. Her esteemed work is in private and public collections including: the Baltimore Museum of Art, Mint Museum of Craft + Design, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Scott was featured in the MESSAGES episode of Craft in America. 

Madison Metro photos