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Mama Nef @ Partlow Art

Animation / Video / Film, Drama, Drawing, Literary, Multimedia, Painting, Paper / Book / Illustration, Poetry, Sculpture / Installation, Visual / Media

My artworks are narratives inspired by Spirit, magic, nature, the marriage of images and words, the indigenous African American experience, and reverence for life. I love drawing real and imagined people who are magical, mythical, extra ordinary—whose lives are stories we have never heard before. White space and faded lines represent those things we can see and will never know about others. The monochromatic shading engages the humanity and sacredness of a being as the point of entry to relationship with that being.

Past and future ancestors, the Middle Passage, and the rhythms of water and wind are the subjects of my oil and acrylic paintings. I especially enjoy weaving wood, paper, crystals, glass, text, fibers, images, jewelry, cloth, and weird trinkets into mixed-media compositions. Some pieces are prayers for racial healing; some are totem poems; some are sculpted avatars. Art journals, accordion pop-ups, and reimagined books are artifacts of my contemplative spiritual practices.

About the Artist

Baltimore native Lenett Partlow-Myrick aka Mama Nef is a visual artist, poet-writer, educator, spirARTtual activist, grandmother, and principal artist for Partlow Art. She makes artifacts of her living experiences as an African-descendant female residing in the United States. Her visual art has been featured at the Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery, in group shows at  Hamilton Gallery, the Dos-à-Dos book art exhibit,  and most recently on the cover of Passager. Her writings appear in several anthologies, including A Community of . . . VOICES, When Divas Laugh, Little Patuxent Review, and Dancing Shadow Review. Honored in 2022 by AFRO American News for her activism, Mama Nef currently pursues a Ph.D. in Transdisciplinary Leadership, Creativity, and Sustainability. 

Mama Nef @ Partlow Art website https://dosadosbookart.wordpress.com/our-shows/

Artist's Statement

I'm constantly exploring mediums through which my visual­-literary-performaning selves can be expressed simultaneously.  I may start out with one idea, but the finished piece is always a surprise.  All I have to do is trust my creative process and release attachments to outcomes. Forget about making perfect art.  It’s all about showing up on the page/canvas/floor and keeping the work real, from the heart.  And if the work touches people even a little bit, then that’s cool, too.

Featured Work

Photos

This composition evolved over 10 months of meditation on my spiritual lineage beyond religious doctrine and theologies, toward an original cosmology story that feels like the truth to me. The black silhouette figure represents the mother of all creation who gives birth to galaxies, worlds, and continents and holds the Akashic records of all ancestors past, present, and yet to be born.
This piece recently appeared on the cover of Passager, edited by Christine Lincoln. Making art for this cover was a timely and healing opportunity to create something beautiful out of a moment of total upheaval in my life. Sometimes we have to let our hands and fingers move us through these tsunamis. Circles from chats with the editor became vellum paper orbs singed around the edges by a candle's flame, cooled by streaks of glitter glue signifying the indestructible presence of spirit. Braided copper wire became the border of a larger circle filled with glass teardrops hung from single strands of wire. There's a lot happening in this piece that I did not consciously intend and that baffles me, still. But of this I am certain: We're all a little burnt around the edges from life's traumas and pain, watered by our collective tears of radiant light.
This painting is inspired by Otis Redding's classic song, "Try a Little Tenderness." I've always loved this song, especially the way it's so carefully composed; how it begins slowly and builds to a frenzy of passion with Redding's voice and that awesome STAX rhythm section. I've listened to this song countless times and it gets inside my body and makes me move every time. One day while sitting in traffic and spazzing out on the song in the car, I got the idea to video myself doing the same while painting. (View the recording at: ) My husband has since recorded me painting to other songs I love and I am waiting for the ancestors in those paintings to reveal themselves as well.
My father, Carl A. Partlow, Jr., aka Sonny, was an artist, and he taught me to draw when I was 4 years old. Pencil is still my favorite medium. This drawing is one of my favorites.
I love making books. It’s a high form of meditation that centers me completely in the present, in that state of “no mind” where thoughts yield to pure creative impulses. That’s where all the magic happens. That’s where the art gets made. This is my first book constructed as a sculpted piece. The text reads from top to bottom in a spiral motion.

Videos

  • Making Our Spaces Sacred

    See more information about Making Our Spaces Sacred
    "Making Our Spaces Sacred" is my first short documentary and features some of Baltimore's most dynamic artistic, spiritual, and cultural leaders. It is rooted in my deep love of stories about the African American experience, especially our untold and rarely heard stories. This video began as a conversation with a friend in 2021. I now have over 10 hours of recorded conversations along with footage and photographs of outdoor sites around Baltimore City. My challenge was to either wait until I raised enough money to produce a full-length documentary OR share what I had with funding received from a modest MSAC individual artist grant. I'm glad I followed my gut. However short, there's so much meaning and beauty in this video that invites repeated viewings, which may be the gift of its length. Sometimes we artists must make the most of what we have and let the work stand for itself.
    Medium: Video
    Year: 2022
    Details: 3 min. 6 secs.

Booking

Booking Price: $1,001-$2,000

Contact: Mama Nef
(443) 857-2402
partlowart2020@gmail.com

6' table/podium/microphone/screen to view videos and pics

Available to travel with funding support

Rashida Forman-Bey / mamarashida@gmail.com
Jenny O'Grady / jogrady@umbc.edu
Victor Rodgers / victor@dewmorebaltimore.org