Apr 2-Oct 3,2021

ON VIEW IN THE WALGREENS WINDOWS PROJECT SPACE
LOCATED AT 23RD STREET AND COLLINS AVENUE

Bass Famous Tabernacle, 2021
Latex acrylic paint
33 x 10 ft.
Courtesy of the artist

 

Sterling Rook (b. 1984, US) is a Miami native who lives and works in Miami, Florida. Rook received a Master’s in Fine Art from Florida International University (2017) and is currently a resident artist at the Bakehouse Art Complex. Rook’s work explores connection to place, belonging, and notions of “home” usually by working within family histories of fiber-craft: On the maternal/Peruvian side of his family, his grandmother was a re-weaver, and his grandfather was a tailor, and his paternal grandfather’s last name was “Stringer,” which is a British historical-occupational name for one who made rope or string. Rook uses these histories as starting points to explore identity as both a connected and transformative tapestry that re-interprets and combines histories.

In Bass Famous Tabernacle, Rook traded in the fiber-based mediums and instead opted to conflate notions of text and textile in order to create a mural that weaves together words unique to place and peoples. Part urban homage, part found poem, Bass Famous Tabernacle depicts words selected from the hand-painted signage of local businesses throughout Miami. Each word conveys a sentiment, a need or place that can be read from different orientations with different interpretations. The top line, also the work’s title, “Bass Famous Tabernacle,” references Miami as the holy city of 90’s bass music but also acknowledges to the nearby museum. The hand-painted mural takes inspiration from similarly crafted signage on businesses and places of worship in urban areas visited by the artist. The graphic cartography charts neighborhoods in the northwest quadrant of Miami, like Allapattah, Little River, Liberty City, Opa-Locka, North Miami, North Miami Beach, Brownsville and Hialeah. Many of these places are disappearing or moving as development expands and transforms the city’s landscape. Here, these words weave together like a painted textile-poem to remind us that the fabric of this place is unique in some ways and common in others.

Does the city have memory? Does it remember itself? Does it persist as it changes?