Wali Walt Neil's Public Legacy
- August 10, 2023 - August 11, 2023
Guests enjoying Wali's original artwork
News of the Mile, artHYPE and AVM
Francesca Miller, Artist influenced by Walt Neil
Chris and Samantha Devlin, Barbara Fant, Stacy and Reggie Gooden, Reception photos by Lori Hutchison
Exhibition Installation
Wren Sarrow with projected murals by Walt Neil
Exhibition view
Nelson Datu setting up to record Barbara Fant's Poetry Performance.
Patrick Dyer and Justin Boone with Jonathan Sarrow
Stacy Gooden with Victoria Esposito
Jewlya Samaniego with Wren Sarrow in front of Wali's Divine Feminine Mural
Barbara Fant warming up
Barbara Fant
Guests, including Tisha Janigian, watching Barbara Fant's enthralling poetry performance
Documenting Walt Wali Neil's Legacy in Columbus, Ohio - By Donte Woods Spikes
One of the most anticipated art exhibitions of the year, Walt Wali Neil’s Public Legacy Art Exhibition, was showcased for two days and evenings, August 10 and 11, 2023, at TAG, The Artists Gallery, Sky Gallery, 5458 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, 90036. The two-day, multi-media contemporary art exhibition celebrates the life and works of the legendary artist Walt Wali Neil, who passed away in 2020, and displayed original paintings, drawings, and cut-outs curated from Neil’s extensive, multi-dimensional catalog.
The exhibit opened Thursday, August 10, and the closing reception was Friday, August 11, 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm. The complimentary reception featured performance poetry by Barbara Fant, a celebrated Los Angeles-based Poet, Storyteller, Voice-Over Artist from Columbus, and collaborator with Neil and the late poet Charles Issaid Lions. Wine and hors-d'oeuvres were served.
Neil’s Afrofuturism artworks, his remarkable life as a teacher, musician, and muralist, and the artists who value his influence and promote his legacy will be on exhibit. See a collection of Neil’s most public-focused paintings and Limited-Edition prints released by Denise Neil. Extensive public murals and artworks reveal Walt Neil’s widespread influence on Columbus, Ohio, artists’ imaginations, and devotion to continuity and community.
Last fall, Walt Wali Neil was posthumously named “Artist of the Year” by the KBK Black Cultural Fine Arts Expo Curators. During his life and work in Cleveland, Nancy Nolan Jones, then director of the African American Museum in the Hough neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio, noted, “[Neil] is so well-liked. It’s our good fortune to have such a culturally sensitive artist.”
“Wali was an Artist of the Spirit. His art came through a lens of Beauty and Love,” said Denise Neil, the artist’s wife. “He taught of the Past, a rich cultural wealth of African roots. He reflected on the current joy and struggles. And he projected us into a Future, confident not only of our surviving but thriving,” she said.
For more information, Contact artHYPE, Curator Wren Sarrow, Website https://artHYPE.net, Email [email protected], Mobile 213-713-6643. Press Images are available for download, password “press”: https://www.artworkarchive.com/rooms/arthype/efa2be
artHYPE’s partnership includes Denise Neil, the Walt Neil Estate manager, Reggie and Stacy Gooden of Artist Voice Media, and Executive Producer Jonathan Sarrow and Independent Curator Wren Sarrow (M.A. Art History, The Ohio State University). This partnership is dedicated to promoting the prolific, visionary, and multi-dimensional talent of Walt Wali Neil and how important Neil’s vision is today and tomorrow.
RECENT PRESS
Walt Wali Neil is one of 9 Artists profiled and honored with the Columbus Street Banner Campaign, 2023
https://www.dispatch.com/story/lifestyle/features/2023/06/29/who-is-behind-the-new-banners-lining-south-sides-parsons-avenue-scott-woods-gentrification/70347739007/
Walt Wali Neil’s Portrait of Martin Luther King highlighted for MLK, 2023
https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2023/01/16/your-guide-to-martin-luther-king-jr-art-in-columbus/69790429007/
About The Artists Gallery (TAG): https://www.taggallery.net/
