Artist Masud Olufani will visit The College at Brockport campus on Wednesday, February 21, to give a lecture, “Reflections of the Divine: Art as a Spiritual Cipher.” Olufani, whose works are featured in the current Tower Fine Arts Center Gallery exhibition, Southern Sampler: Contemporary Artists of the New South, will give his talk, which is free and open to the public, at 7 p.m. in Room 2203 in Tower Fine Arts Center, 180 Holley Street, Brockport.
Olufani, who has given this talk throughout the Eastern seaboard, looks at creating art this way: “My objects aspire to be visual poems – works of art that reach beyond themselves to reveal something meaningful about the human experience. I attempt to create work which blends formal elegance, emotional integrity and spiritual resonance … I still believe in the transformative potential of art; that in spite of the undertow of our overtly materialistic society the power of artistic expression rests in its ability to lift the spirit and inspire new ways of seeing. It is this faith in the inherent potentialities latent within the vision of the artist that compels me to create.”
Aside from his faith in artist’s potential, Olufani feels that religion itself has something to do with how art is created. He explains that he is “a Baha’i, and consistent with the teachings of my faith, my work is created in a spirit of service and a desire to do my part in carrying forward an ever-advancing civilization.”
Tim Massey, gallery director and curator of the Southern Sampler show, thinks that Olufani’s artistic efforts “remind us that we continue to need to keep a constant vigil for the care and concern of all peoples, and mindful of the realities of others regardless of race, gender or social status.”
To that end, the lecture is one of the college’s events commemorating Black History Month. It is co-sponsored by the Tower Fine Arts Center Gallery, a “Promoting Excellence in Diversity” Grant, and the Departments of African and African-American Studies, Anthropology and Art.
Southern Sampler will continue in the Tower Gallery until March 4.
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