Hooks-Epstein Galleries is very proud to be featuring mixed media processes in Ann Johnson’s, Hoop Dreamin’ and Anna Mavromatis’, Coffee Rituals. The exhibition opens Saturday, January 17 at 11am with a reception for the artists from 6:00 to 8:00pm. The exhibition continues through Saturday, February 14, 2015.

In Ann Johnson’s, Hoop Dreamin’, she explores the social issue of a “Hoop Dream” by creating a series of decorative basketball goals. Meant to resemble dreamcatchers, each “BlingCatcher” uses an official basketball goal. In lieu of a mass of feathers, she has chosen gold and silver jewelry (the bling) with designs ranging from crosses to dollar signs. In the center of some of the BlingCatchers, there are looping videos that display a young man contemplating his dream and repeats the phrase, “My freedom gotta rim it”. Ann Johnson states, “I spend my summers working with inner city youth in various summer programs in Houston. I’ve noticed that so many young boys believe that basketball is their only means of success and career achievement. They see the fame, money, and bling and focus only on their “hoop dream”.

Ann Johnson, received her B.S. in Home Economics from Prairie View A&M University in Texas. She has also received an M.A. in Humanities from the University of Houston –Clear Lake. In addition, she also received an M.F.A. from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, CA. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Art at Prairie View A&M University.

In Anna Mavromatis’, Coffee Rituals, she presents an exhibition of narratives that reflect stories from her childhood during coffee conversations. She is revisiting those stories, their emotions, their truths and lies, through her own markings by using coffee filters as her canvas. She incorporates printmaking, images and various other media in her work. Her work creates a landscape that comprises several homelands. Anna Mavromatis states, “During the coffee rituals of my childhood, all news were discussed, letters from afar read, wise sayings quoted, family members’ heroic deeds described for a thousandth time, deceased loved ones mourned and children’s antics glorified. Extended family, neighbors, friends were populating that world and enemies were clearly defined as the ones who caused the pain, the sins of war, the end of sunny good lives spent where they will never return to: the place they will never stop calling “homeland”.”

Anna Mavromatis received her B.A. from the London College of Fashion at the University of the Arts in London. She also studied printmaking from the Glassell School of Art in Houston, TX. She currently resides in Houston.

For more images, please visit the full exhibition.

***PLEASE NOTE: Gallery Talks featuring Ann Johnson and Anna Mavromatis will be held Saturday, January 31st and Saturday, February 7th! Check back for more details!