Creatives In Control

Participating Artists: Rubin Bates, Jerri Burks, Mandy Demorest, Chantell Donwell, Robert Duncombe, Latoya Elliot, Ronald Griggs, Johnie Lockhart, Richard Marshall, Tracy Mason, Ryan McDonagh, Nathaniel McNeal Jr., Dameon Miller, Khiry O'Neal, Marquise Rucker, Detroit Angel Tweety, and Alexis Young.

Curated by Lewis Foster, Rodney Hudson, Keisha Miller, and Lauren Williams

Opening: August 1st, 5 pm –7 pm

Exhibition Dates: August 1st – September 7th, 2024

PASC Detroit Gallery
LANTERN
9301 Kercheval Ave, Suite 2,
Detroit, MI 48214
313-267-9797

Gallery Hours: Th, Fr & Sa, 12 – 5 pm and by appointment

Creatives In Control is the first exhibition curated entirely by PASC Artists. The four-artist curatorial team of Lewis Foster, Rodney Hudson, Keisha Miller, and Lauren Williams has selected 21 artworks from their PASC artist colleagues across all three PASC studios. With an unorthodox approach, each curator has chosen to react to the curatorial process through a visual exposition, creating hand-painted murals on the gallery walls, complementing each artwork with playful abstractions, vivid line-work, and watercolor washes. Like an exhibition text, the murals explore each artist-curator's experience of the selected artworks through inspired gestures. The result is an exhibition as immersive visual experience.

As curators, Foster, Hudson, Miller, and Williams exercise their ability to lead and independently make choices, while respectfully responding through their own form of curatorial communication, highlighting their taste, and eye for art. With this initiative the artists-as-curators take ownership of their gallery space, bringing all the creative imaginations of PASC together to create one brilliant world.

Creatives In Control was facilitated by PASC Art Advisor Chloé Hajjar and PASC Gallery Assistant Amber Nax. Both staff helped to guide the curatorial process through engaging the four curators with prompts, conversation and offering context to the curatorial process. This exhibition was supported directly with a grant PASC received from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to develop a curatorial program for artists/curators with disabilities.

Lewis Foster, Rodney Hudson, Keisha Miller, and Lauren Williams are Detroit-based artists working out of the PASC Detroit studio. Lewis creates realistic drawings featuring neat rows of objects, text and logos. Rodney creates artworks that features stylized bold abstractions which he often refers to as freestyles. Keisha is a realist artist, in that she aims to depict her references in the most exacting detail, a style marked by strong linework, and vibrant colors. Lauren Williams’ artworks gravitate toward positive idealized images of people, cakes, unicorns, and videogame inspired scenery.

Launched in 2021, PASC is the first progressive art and design studio and exhibition program in Detroit and Wayne County dedicated to supporting artists with developmental disabilities and mental health differences to advance artistic practices and build individual careers in the art and design fields. PASC is a program of Services to Enhance Potential (STEP), a non-profit service organization founded in 1972 that provides services and support for more than 1,400 individuals with disabilities and mental health differences across Southeastern Michigan. Our exhibitions program is supported with grants from the Michigan Arts and Cultural Council, Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan, and the National Endowment for the Arts.