This fall’s Art @ the Center will feature the work of two Lumbee artists, community-based visual artist Ashley Minner of Baltimore’s Lumbee community, and artist Alisha Locklear Monroe from the home of the Lumbee people, Robeson County, North Carolina.
Unique As We Are Alike is a multidimensional exploration of contemporary Lumbee identity that focuses on the experiences of Lumbees defining themselves and their commonalities despite years of being defined by others. This process, through symbolism and portraiture, creates a feeling of connectedness, compassion, and empathy, which showcases the uniqueness of Lumbee identity while underscoring certain commonalities of the human condition.
This art exhibit will be free and available for viewing at the Love House and Hutchins Forum from the hours of 9 am-5 pm until December 12th, 2018.
About the Artists
Ashley Minner is a community based visual artist from Baltimore, Maryland. An enrolled member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, she has been active in the Baltimore Lumbee community for many years, and regularly visits communities throughout the U.S South and Latin America as well. Ashley works as a folklorist for the Maryland Traditions Program of the Maryland State Arts Council and is a part-time lecturer in the Department of American Studies at University of Maryland Baltimore County. She is also part-time faculty in the Masters of Fine Arts in Community Arts Program at Maryland Institute College of Art. She coordinates Artists U Baltimore, a grassroots planning and professional development program run by and for artists. Ashley is a doctoral student in the Department of American Studies at University of Maryland College Park, where she is studying folklore, museum scholarship and material culture, and relationships between place and identity. Ashley was a 2016 Innovative Cultural Advocacy Fellow with the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI) in NY, NY. Her work has been supported by Alternate ROOTS, Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation), the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, the Maryland State Arts Council, Kresge Arts, and the Warnock Foundation. She is most inspired by the beauty of everyday people.
Alisha Locklear Monroe is a Lumbee artist and educator from Robeson County, North Carolina. Her medium of choice is acrylic, but she also specializes in graphic art and drawing. Alisha is the Museum Educator at the Museum of the Southeast American Indian on the campus of UNC Pembroke. She is very active in the arts community in Robeson County, N.C. where she helped establish the River Roots Arts Guild and the Artist Market Pembroke. Alisha received a BA degree in Art and Masters in Art Education from UNC Pembroke. She won Best in Contemporary Artists at the NC United Tribes Unity Conference in 2004 and has shown at several venues through southeastern NC. She worked for several years as an Assistant Gallery Director at Guilford Native American Art Gallery in Greensboro and then as a Visual Arts Teacher at Fairgrove Middle School in Fairmont N.C. Her work is part of the collection of UNC Greensboro and UNC Pembroke as well as other private collections. Alisha’s art creates dialogue around sensitive topics which separate and connect all of us. She is currently creating a body of work that uses the research that was conducted on Robeson County Indians in the early 1900’s.