Markeith Chavous
‘the waves and the mantram, part 1′
January 25-March 7, 2024
Opening Reception: Thurs., Jan. 25th, 5:00pm-7:00pm
Artist Talk: Wed., Feb. 7th, 12:30pm
Free and open to the public
A nurse lives on an island on the easternmost edge of the country, committed to the growth of his family, his community and himself. He offers up a glimpse from memory, in faith, in doubt.
He glances into, around and against himself, and is measured in between the scarcely documented narratives and perspectives that have formed him—between the sacred and profane, between inner-life and social responsibility, between the religious and the spiritual. Alongside him there are glimpses through contained spaces and reflective landscapes—moments, small gestures, sounds, slowed, semi-abstracted driving footage in Vermont and Maine, slivers of meaning, bodies, wind, water, witnesses. All circling the innermost, all-too-human.
‘the waves and the mantram, part 1‘ is the first in a trilogy of cinematic triptychs that thread together varied narratives, accounts, images, poems and documents of belief and spirituality; and the environments that surround, impact, and inform those beliefs. It is a slate, an elastic model of being.
This project debuted in 2023 in Scotland at the Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival’s Exhibitions Programme, and was then subsequently exhibited in South Korea at the Czong Institute for Contemporary Art (CICA) as part of the Experimental Film & Video 2023 exhibition. We are very proud to bring Markeith Chavous’ (UMF ’11) multi-channel film to Emery Community Arts Center for its North American debut.
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Markeith Chavous is a media artist and poet. His work plies at the edges and inquires into the thin space between tensile, fleeting dichotomies and polarities—receding and becoming; narrative and documentary; painting and film/video; inner life and social identity; stillness and change; religion and spirituality; humanism and transcendence. Through multimedia installations (informed by experimental and documentary film, and the history of Western painting) and short form poetry, he attempts, time and time again, to glance against the innermost and all-too-human.His video work and installations have been presented internationally at the Film and Moving Image Festival in Scotland, at the Czong Institute for Contemporary Art (CICA) Museum in South Korea, and in the US at the Lewiston-Augusta Film Festival in Maine, the New Studio A.D in New Mexico, and in Los Angeles. His poetry has been widely published in international journals and anthologies such as NOON: An Anthology of Short Poems, Modern Haiku, BONES, The Heron’s Nest, KAMIHIKOUKI, and HAIKU 2016.
He holds a degree in Studio Art from the University of Maine at Farmington, and an MFA in Film & Video from the California Institute of the Arts.
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‘the waves and the mantram, part 1‘ was made possible in part by financial support from the Vermont Arts Council Artist Development Grant/National Endowment for the Arts, a grant from the Integrity: Arts and Culture Association, and additional support from Alchemy Film and Arts, Scotland.
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