CHESTERTOWN — Washington College’s Kohl Gallery will open its 2024-25 season with “Freestyle,” an exhibition of recent works by Brandon Donahue-Shipp and Katie Pumphrey that will be on view in the Gibson Center for the Arts from Sept. 13 to Oct. 19.
The Baltimore-based artists will speak in a moderated public conversation led by new gallery director Rob Blackson on Friday, Sept. 13 beginning at 4:30 p.m.
A public catered reception celebrating the exhibition will immediately follow the artists’ conversation.
“Freestyle” was conceived by former Kohl Gallery director Tara Gladden.
“Artistry and athletics are inextricably connected. Donahue-Shipp and Pumphrey extend this creative connection through their individual artistic practices,” a news release states.
Donahue-Shipp will be exhibiting selections from his “basketball bloom” series. These reliefs of basketball and football skins are stitched with shoestrings into large-scale petalled arrangements. “The deflated and dark sunbursts from this series are reflections of the many unfulfilled aspirations of Black and Brown boys’ dreams of athletic stardom,” the news release states.
Complementing these works is a screen print from Donahue-Shipp’s “Coach’s Playbook” series, which through gestural drawing overlays the assigned choreography of offensive/defensive moves made by basketball players above the floor plan of a standard judicial courtroom.
Pumphrey is a visual artist and ultramarathon open-water swimmer.
Pulling from her experiences as an athlete, both training in the pool and her ultramarathon swims in open water, the new works she will be exhibiting at Kohl Gallery use abstraction and imagery to investigate our anxieties, fears, and how our imagination plays tricks on us.
Incorporating a bit of humor, Pumphrey explores these tensions and the connectedness between human instincts and play.
“Freestyle” brings these two artists together for their first exhibition in Kent County.
The Kohl Gallery is fully accessible and open to the public every Tuesday through Saturday from 2 to 5 p.m. and on Wednesdays from 2 to 6 p.m.
Viewings also are available by appointment.
For more information or to contact the gallery, visit www.washcoll.edu/about/campus/kohl-gallery/index.php.
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Brandon Donahue-Shipp is a multidisciplinary artist working in painting, drawing, assemblage and public art. His work is rooted in community engagement with an emphasis on sports and connectedness.
He has exhibited nationally and internationally, including the 13th annual Havana Biennial in Matanzas, Cuba in 2019.
Donahue-Shipp’s work is Included in the book publication “Common Practice: Basketball and Contemporary Art” by Carlos Rolon, covering more than a century of artwork from 200-plus leading artists.
He received a Bachelor of Science from Tennessee State University and a Master of Fine Arts from The University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
Donahue-Shipp is an assistant professor of art at the University of Maryland, College Park, and lives in Baltimore.
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Katie Pumphrey is an interdisciplinary visual artist working in painting, sculpture and installation.
Her works have been exhibited in galleries across the United States, including solo exhibitions in Baltimore, Washington and Key West, Florida.
Pumphrey received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2009.
She has attended residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, Studios of Key West, Gallery Four and the Creative Alliance.
Her work is deeply connected to her experiences as an athlete, and her time in the water greatly influences and drives her work.
Notable swims include the “triple crown” of open-water swimming: English Channel, Catalina Channel and around the Island of Manhattan. She is the 194th person, and 73rd woman, to complete these three swims.
In June, Pumphrey became the first person to complete the Bay to Baltimore swim, a 24-mile swim from the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.
She lives and works in Baltimore.