Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning (JCAL) has announced a new long-term collaboration with the Greater Jamaica Development Corporation (GJDC) to showcase original art exhibitions at Greater Nexus.
Located at 89-14 Parsons Blvd., Greater Nexus is downtown Jamaica’s first accessible shared co-working space. The Greater Nexus space is over 10,000 square feet of shared office space, conference and meeting rooms, training spaces and more.
The three-year-long project, dubbed JCAL Exhibitions at Greater Nexus, is a part of the Queens Visual Arts Consortium, which strives to unite Queens’ nonprofit arts institutions and commercial businesses to present original artwork by local artists.
The collaboration will produce 12 exhibitions and give opportunities for participating artists to gain exposure and sell their work. Participating artists in JCAL Exhibitions at Greater Nexus are selected by Wendy Berot, JCAL’s director of program operations.
“Diving into the deep JCAL talent pool was thrilling, as our partnership with Greater Nexus strengthens the notion that art is a part of our daily lives,” said Berot. “In a space where business is being conducted almost around the clock, the work of local visual artists will create an ambiance that may invite someone to pause for a moment to recognize and appreciate the talents of their fellow community members.”
The first selected artist is Jaimee Todd, a Queens based self-taught multidisciplinary artist. Todd has previously exhibited her work in various spaces, including Instagram’s headquarters, the National Black Theatre, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and Rutgers University-Newark. Todd was also a fellow in JCAL’s artist-in-residence program, ARTWorks.
Todd shared that her featured works include abstract paintings and drawings celebrating the vitality of life, through pattern, bold lines and vivid colors. “The works come from two series: ‘Cellular Networks,’ which examines the wonder of human biology, and ‘Searching for Proginoskes,’ which explores the power of identity and bearing witness,” Todd said.
The artists following Todd include Gia Gutierrez, Lisa Maria Maya and Luis Merlin Lantingua.
