Bruton_ Alpha_ Biographical Profile
Alpha Bruton is a painter and an environmental installation artist who synthesizes set design, film theatre, sculpture, and other two-dimensional forms. Alpha Bruton creates environmental art installations where objects and images are selected to "serve as cultural mirrors," The sites in which they are situated serve as part of a broader cultural commentary. She believes that objects in the public sphere communicate and reinforce certain cultural narratives, hierarchies, and social mythologies. She feels that she makes artwork that demands the audience to confront art and activism issues; she also makes art representational and provocative. What inspires her most is the feeling that she has a social responsibility as an artist to record history and to thrust awareness about life and the earth upon the viewer—to cast another perspective from which to view the world.
Her curatorial practice is the Phantom Gallery Chicago Network. The Phantom Galleries are temporary exhibitions in nontraditional gallery settings. She is a co-author and researcher for Pop Up Research Station and Creative Conversation, a portal where curators nationally share knowledge, resources of best practices, ongoing professional development, and a place for moral support to enhance our collective impact while staging pop-up exhibitions. As a chief curator, she has challenged collaborating artists to present temporary installations that engage in public interaction by experimenting with every possible combination and playing around with a genuine approach to each investigation from the beginning to the end. These new installations are a window to the imaginary, a summons, and an overture to a dialogue.
In the last decade, she has traveled nationally and internationally created art as an artist-in-resident engaging community in artmaking. She has created temporary installations in City Lots, along the pedestrian walkway, in National Forest Preserves, on Land Trust to Conservatorships, empty storefronts as alternative spaces, and Museum settings.
Experimental Satellite Film Festival, 2021 Featured Artist Renee Baker, Curator Alpha Bruton
She is currently represented by Gallery Guichard of Chicago, IL, and a 2021 Curatorial Fellow at the Evanston Art Center, Evanston, IL. Examining the State of the Environment, "Either Wrong or Right Just Examine."
Illinois: Bronzeville Art District, Common Grounds Overton Project, "Anarchitectural Library 2019- 2020, Chicago Cultural Center Architecture Biennial, "Peace Tower" Mark di Suvero, Chicago Cultural Center, Griffin Gallery, Gallery Guichard, Experimental Station, Evanston Art Center, Murphy Hill Gallery, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago Roger Brown Gallery, Tarble Art Center Eastern Illinois University, William G. Hill Gallery. California: Los Angeles Jovenes Art Park, Sojourner Truth African Heritage Museum, Visual Arts Development Project in Sacramento. International Society of Altar Making. Florida: Miami Art Week/Art Basel in Overton, Florida, Kroma Art Space, Coconut Grove. Virginia: Artomatic in Crystal City, Virginia.
International projects: Art on Armitage, Chicago - Supermarket 2015 Stockholm Sweden Independent Art Fair, Berlin, Pankow East Berlin, Hannover, a Global Art Space/Berlin Art Club, International Art Group., "Encounters" Vancouver Canada, Sacramento California, and Mexico City, Mexico.
Statement about the artwork in the exhibition:
I started painting spirit keepers in the early '80s. Not in reproduction, but periodically I have been asked to collaborate with other installation artists, poets, or altar builders, using my spirit keeper paintings of women to represent the four directions. The rituals at the heart of the Shamanic path are the contract to live in harmony with nature, self, community, and spirit.
When painting, I believe in the positive, life-affirming, and carry that flag of positive power while creating the work. As taught through Native American knowledge, using the four directions is deeply embedded with symbolism and guidance for transformation. Smudging and cleaning the space is the preparation.
Spirit Keeper, "Lilith," Acrylic on Paper,
Spirit Keeping is the act of keeping spirits of once, living entities as friends & companions, typically bound to a vessel or yourself. People who do this are known as Spirit Keepers. In its most basic form of conjuring a spirit & conversing with it or giving it a task. It is meant to converse with spirits for a purpose, ask a question, ask them for help, and ask for guidance, usually for a temporary amount of time, not for an ongoing life choice.
All spirits come of their own, free will to choose to spend their time with a Spirit Keeper. Spirits provide insight into life that cannot otherwise be obtained. They can help you with countless things throughout your daily life & your paranormal path. This way, they know they cannot be tampered with, encroached upon, or otherwise impeded upon by anyone other than yourself.
Spirit Keeper "Quietest Moment Before the Dawn," Acrylic on Paper
Why paint the Lilith myth? I do not believe she is a myth. I believe in the power of angles that they are all around us, Hebrew 1:6 "Let all the angels of God worship him." Hebrew 13:1 "Love your fellow Christian always, do not neglect to show hospitality. It is said that this spirit can affect our homes as well as our churches. This spirit causes division and even attacks our children. This spirit is also associated with seduction. It moves like the wind swift.
The Sumerians were powerful people, and like all the histories of mighty empires, and their way of worship, has been distorted depending on who is recording their narrative. First, Sumer was an ancient civilization founded in the Mesopotamia region of the Fertile Crescent situated between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Known for their innovations in language, governance, architecture, and more, Sumerians are considered the creators of civilization as modern humans understand it. Second, their control of the region lasted for a short of 2,000 years before the Babylonians took charge in 2004 B.C.
