Join the Jesup Memorial Library in celebrating the Third Annual Ashley Bryan Honorary Lecture with Keith Morris Washington on Thursday, July 13 at 6:30 p.m.

The art of Keith Morris Washington investigates meaning and metaphor through landscape and portraiture. These landscapes and full-body portraits explore memory, identity and social themes, that are latent and often obscured by visible features, cultural (mis)understanding and time.

Washington is an acclaimed artist who has studied Fine Art, Painting, Graphic Design, and Printmaking at Tufts University School of the Museum of Fine Art, Massachusetts College of Art, and the American River College. He has been a Studio Foundation professor at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston since 2000.

The three bodies of work that Washington will share and discuss are: Within our Gates: Site and Memory in the American Landscape, an ongoing series of paintings capturing nearly forgotten bucolic crime scenes of lynching sites throughout the United States. The series mediates spaces, investigates a past still present, interrogates tradition, and questions discrepancies extolled in the Hudson River/Luminist paintings. Black Lives…, inspired by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Say Her Name movements, these slightly larger than life portraits of anonymous folks, extol the humanity of people who live in areas where Say Her Name and BLM has been active. Marks of a Native Son is a series of self portraits.

The Annual Ashley Bryan Lecture is named in honor of the late printmaker, author, puppet maker, painter, story teller and illustrator Ashley Bryan, who devoted his life to bringing people together through art. This yearly lecture brings a distinguished artist or critic of color whose work reflects similarly this deep interest in racial equity to discuss that work with the Downeast Maine community.

To find out more about the Ashley Bryan Lecture as well as how to support this event in years to come visit jesuplibrary.org/ashleybryan. To attend this program virtually register for the Zoom link, please fill out the form below. In-person attendees will be encouraged to wear masks.