Art Festival Exhibit To Showcase World Renowned African Artists and Craftspeople
The 16th Annual Pan African Film and Arts Festival (PAFF) will host its annual ART MART, a major exhibit of Black fine art and quality crafts featuring the work of over 100 different artists and artisans. The artistic works range in scope from oil paintings, watercolors, sculpture, mixed media, pen and ink drawings, glass painting and carvings to jewelry art and woven apparel. The exhibit will be presented to the public free of charge at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza located at 3650 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. in Los Angeles, with fine art on the 1st level, and unique crafts and wearable art on the 2nd level. The 2008 PAFF ART MART is sponsored in part by the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, Black Business Association, Los Angeles County Arts Commission, and the City of Los Angeles' Department of Cultural Affairs. Ghana's ALLOHN AGBENYA serves as the curator of PAFF's ART MART.
The 2008 PAFF ART MART featured artist is DIANA SHANNON-YOUNG, an esteemed artist, art consultant, and art dealer residing in Riverside, California.
Shannon-Young's signature works consist of the contrast use of heavy texture to strike a balance between the familiar and the abstract. She enjoys working mainly in pastel and acrylic on paper or acrylic on canvas with some collage. Also signature to Shannon-Young's work is that most figures are void of the eye and nose features thus challenging the perceptive viewer to determine the subjects personality by their posture, position, expressive mouth, tilt of the head, and animated movement.
Her "Bee Bop Scat Queen" has been selected as the Official Image for the 2008 PAFF.
New to the PAFF ART MART is New Media Fine Artist SON OF ELLIS of Memphis, Tennessee. Other noteworthy artists include ALLOHN AGBENYA from Ghana, AZIZ DIAGNE a multimedia artist from Senegal, West Africa, and renowned Harlem based Pan African fashion designer GRETA of SIMPLY GRETA.
Known for showcasing new films first and recognized as America's premiere black film festival, past PAFF features have included box office and award-winning hits: Ray, Lackawanna Blues, Redemption, Crazy As Hell, Kingdom Come, The Brothers, Gridlock'd, Days of Glory, and the 2006 Academy Award® winner for Best Foreign Film, Tsotsi. The film festival will take place in Los AngelesFebruary 7-18, 2008 and is expected to draw over 40,000 attendees during its twelve-day run. The complete list of films is available at www.PAFF.org.
2008 PAFF ART MART Exhibitors and Schedule