On Friday, May 6, the Art department at Stanislaus State held another visiting artist guest lecture event via Zoom. The artist featured was June Edmonds, an American painter, public artist and teaching artist. 
Artist June Edmonds was born in Los Angeles in the year 1959. According to Professor Mirabel Wigon, Art Instructor, she received her MFA from Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, and a bachelor’s degree from Sand Diego State University. Edmonds is known for creating pieces that are colorful, surfaces that are layered, meditative practices that explore the relationships between color and repetition, the power of archetypical systems, spiritual contemplation, and her interpersonal connection to her African American roots.
To provide an idea of how these events typically go, during this artist guest lecture, Edmonds’ compiled her main works on powerpoint slides for the audience to see. She went through her pieces one by one and explained the season of life that she was in when she created the displayed piece. The artist spoke for approximately forty-five minutes and left the remaining time for questions from the viewers. Within those forty-five minutes Edmonds was able to cover her earliest works to her latest.
She started off by creating figurative drawings and then transitioned to abstract pieces as she progressed in her career. However, she mentions in her lecture that she still has the itch for both approaches and styles of art. Throughout this presentation, we were able to see the thought processes behind the artist’s works and what events were taking place that inspired said works. Some events that she mentions is the time period of Barack Obama’s presidency, the George Floyd incident, confederacy in America and her educational career path.
The website to the Luis de Jesus Los Angeles art gallery states that Edmonds is, “Exploring the psychological construct of skin color or tone through pattern and abstract painting has proven to be a revealing gesture and these ideas are explored in her two ongoing series: the Energy Wheel Paintings inspired by her meditation practice and her Flag Paintings, which explore the alignment of multiple identities such as race, nationality, gender, or political leanings.”
The artist shared this work of art during her lecture that she describes to be a reaction painting, which she mentions is something that she does not normally do.
“I did not want to create a confederate flag but as I combined these two flags, I realized that this piece was coming from a place of frustration. This was right around the time of George Floyd, and I was frustrated with the continuation of racism in America,” Edmonds explained.
“Edmonds’s works are powerful: gorgeous and inviting, they are moving and incredibly inspiring, overall,” said Professor Susan Stephenson, Art Instructor. “She makes paintings that seem almost tapestry-like in their pageantry and patterns, with intricate surface activity and delicate shapes and configurations; their glowing colors practically hum as they interact with each other. Edmonds clearly knows how to pull the viewer in closer through the compelling artistic decisions she makes.”
Edmonds aimed to be transparent with her audience when explaining the purpose behind her works and enjoyed answering all the follow-up questions that she was asked after this event. The follow-up questions ranged from what tools do you use to achieve the consistent texture throughout your works to what type of artistic style does Edmond prefer. These guest artist events are intended to expose the campus community to a diverse group of artists that share their creative processes and the development of their personal vision.
If you would like to visit exhibitions in which the artist’s works will be shown, feel free to check out June Edmonds’ website. If you would like to attend the next visiting artist guest lecture, feel free to check out the Art Department’s Guest Artist Events page.