Professor Marvin Touré‘s solo exhibition, “the blood is in the water.”, opens on March 9 and will be on view for a year at the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh. Touré was selected for exhibition by Guest Curator, Monique Long, a New York City-based contemporary art curator and writer through Mattress Factory’s annual Regional Open Call.
Touré is an Ivorian-American artist who engages themes of love, loss, and memory through his interdisciplinary practice. “the blood is the water.” utilizes black resin, cast plaster vessels, and coated fibers. The molded structures form multivarious pipes that serve as a visual and metaphorical exploration of connections – between familial memory, inheritance, generational storytelling, and archival networks. Elements of this work are engulfed in a unique mix of reds and oranges referencing the soil of Côte d’Ivoire. With a high-gloss black floor treated with resin beneath and surrounding walls tinted to the tones of red Georgia clay, Touré invites visitors to examine the material of memory and the grounds on which their familial narratives.