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Welcome to Renaissance Fine Art. RFA's mission is to cultivate emerging collectors, provide stellar gallery representation to well-established and emerging artists, and afford individuals and groups with a quaint neighborly space for business and cultural affairs. Read More
Current Show
Urban Pulse - An exploration into identity, class and culture set against the ever evolving back drop of New York City, featuring the paintings and sculptural works of Dawn Okoro, Jordan!™ and Justin West. Read More
About Us
NEW YORK October 16, 2009 - Curtis Jacobs, Founder/President of Renaissance Fine Art, Inc. ("RFA"), located at 2075 Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Blvd (7th Ave.), New York, New York 10027 is pleased to announce the gallery's official launch.
In a joint effort to contribute to the redevelopment and artistic enrichment of Harlem, Jacobs has invited curator Paula Coleman to join RFA as Director. Jacobs and Coleman are thrilled to have this unique opportunity to participate in Harlem's ever-growing and dynamic cultural life. RFA displays the works of contemporary painters, sculptors, and photographers, specializing in the works of artists from the Diaspora. In support of other artistic expressions, the gallery provides a venue for film screenings, book signings, educational workshops, and seminars. RFA will also be available for rentals, artistic salons, private parties, and business meetings. RFA's mission is to cultivate emerging collectors, provide stellar gallery representation to well-established and emerging artists, and afford individuals and groups with a quaint neighborly space for business and cultural affairs.
Curtiss Jacobs is a current Wall Street executive with a fond appreciation for the visual arts. Jacobs worked for a number of years as a successful commercial photographer, specializing in fashion and beauty developing his skills while working under legendary photographers
Richard Avedon and Annie Leibovitz. Jacobs has always been passionate about the unparalleled creativity that emerged during the Harlem Renaissance period, which was the inspiration for the gallery's name.
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As the nexus of the famed 1920s Harlem Renaissance -- where countless artists, writers, poets and musicians converged to create a cultural Mecca - RFA Fine Art will offer a local venue for community artists and creative visionaries. The gallery is dedicated to Joseph David Jacobs a talented painter in his own right and Jacobs' father.
Paula Coleman, Director, emerged on the New York art scene in 2001 at the beginning of the gentrification of Harlem. She co-founded the P.C.O.G. Gallery for six years with the renowned sculptor Ousmane Gueye. Coleman has been an Education Consultant for the past four years, teaching curatorial workshops at Community Prep H.S. in Manhattan. In 2009, she added W.L.Bonner Center's cultural program to her portfolio, teaching their first intergenerational art workshop. As a Harlem resident, Coleman stays involved with its cultural life and continues to work and stay committed to local artists and small businesses.
Gallery
Contact
Paula Coleman, Director - pcoleman@theRFAgallery.com
Camille Tyson, Marketing Director - info@theRFAgallery.com
Current Show
Curated by Jordan Baker-Caldwell
We are in the age of "catalogization," a time were the technology of our era has afforded us the time and ability to reflect upon the wealth of human achievement, and where our most significant addition to the quilt of history is itself the organization and categorization of that information.
This predilection for classification is at the core of who we are as a people; we find security in knowing and naming the things around us, that act gives us a sense of control over factors and elements we otherwise have no power over; at its most basic level, it all stems from our need to define ourselves in relation to the world.
How does one define one's self? Is it by their achievements, by income, by language, by gender, by race? Are we defined by who we believe ourselves to be or are we placed into the categories and groupings we as a society have already outlined for ourselves? In Urban Pulse we examine theses questions from the point of view of "the now." Using the living current of New York City as inspiration we are taken on a journey through the Artist's inner vision of the world and its substance, challenging social morays and inviting us to actively engage in the search for self.
Please come out and hear what inspires these Artists and discuss their unique takes on the world.
My work is informed by the composition techniques used in fashion photography. Using oil and acrylics on canvas, I incorporate photography, collage, and ideas from popular culture. My artwork embodies space, movement, pattern, design, texture, and color; as well as, lived experiences and self-reflexivity. Self-reflexivity is a process by which I critically examine the experiences (exterior and interior) that shape my everyday life and those that surround me.
Justin West is a young emerging talent in the art world. Justin, also know as JAYWEST, is directly influenced by New York City and his personal experiences. He creates works dealing with oppression in the black community; ideas of social identity, the choices and consequences of urban life and the early LA gang scene. A Surrealist and Pop Artist, he draws inspiration from many creative sources and incorporates their visual styles into his work, creating his own distinctive style. In his own words, "I am driven by love of seeing beautiful things come to life."
Jordan!™ creates works that are the reflection of the spirit of our age. Inspired my the media rich culture of today and classical ideas of form and balance, he endeavors to capture the energy of the moment in solid form.
Contact
Dark Matters and Entropy
Artist Jack H. White (in his Harlem studio) stands before the most recently completed piece in the series, Dark Matters and Entropy #53, 2006 64″ x 32″ Acrylic, dry pigment, oxidized iron and plaster on canvas.
The vast number of paintings - over twenty-five makes this the largest series of work ever produced by the artist and his first display since 2002.
White's interest in physics and cosmology inspired Dark Matters and Entropy. With these two concepts in mind and a desire to work with black pigments and oxidized iron, he produced these frescoes, restating his interest in the dualities that most often engender creation.
White says, "The 'Dark Matter Theory' concerns the need for the universe to have more mass or matter than is visible in order for it to hold together. Something maintains stars in orbit and dictates the motions of galaxies and galaxy clusters. What this matter consists of is not yet known. However, 'Dark Matter' matters, if indeed it places order on the universe."
White was born in Brooklyn, New York. His paintings and sculptures have been shown at galleries and museums in the United States and Europe. White is now at the apex of his career, and presently works and lives in Harlem, New York.
'Entropy,' which means disorder, decay, dissipation, and the breaking down of patterns and structures in nature and the universe, must increase or remain the same. Rusting is associated with an increase in entropy. With these two concepts in mind and a desire to work with black pigments and oxidized iron, I produced these frescoes, restating my interest in the dualities which most often engender creation."
-Jack H. White