Along Racial Lines

Queer Cultural Center and Cartoon Art Museum present:
Along Racial Lines: Maureen Burdock and Nancy Cato in conversation
Moderated by: Jacqueline Francis and Pamela Peniston

Tuesday, September 16, 2014
7pm
Cartoon Art Museum
655 Mission (near 3rd), San Francisco

Along Racial Lines is the second public event in Queer Cultural Center’s new Emerging Scholars Program featuring conversations between academic and community institutions.

Artist Maureen Burdock will discuss her current research on narrative structures in graphic novels and cartoon art and show examples of her most recent project, Mumbi & the Long Run. Nancy Cato will discuss her her current exhibition of pen and ink illustrations, Tom Boy, on view at the African American Art and Culture Complex. QCC Board Member, Jacqueline Francis, and QCC Artistic Director, Pamela Peniston will lead a lively discussion on race and gender as they are portrayed in graphic novels and cartoon art.

Maureen Burdock currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she is recently completed her MFA in studio practice and an MA in Visual Critical Studies at the California College of the Arts. She facilitates Laydeez do Comics San Francisco, a comics forum weighted towards women creators, which originated in the UK. Burdock’s most recent project, Mumbi & the Long Run, was recently exhibited at Space Station 65 Gallery in London, in 2014.

Nancy Cato’s Solo Exhibition, Tom Boy is currently featured at the African American Art and Culture Complex in San Francisco and runs through September 18th. Cato was born and raised in New Haven, CT. She spent most of her childhood doodling and tracing comic strips. Early inspirations were her Uncle Donny’s book of illustrations and the graffiti explosion of the 80’s. Her pen and ink illustrations pay homage to her fascination with line weight and space. Her characters are based on the appearances of friends and family, and their whimsical moments draw upon the childhood experiences she often returns to in her dreams. Cato’s work seeks to engage everyday people and participate in serious social conversations with humor, wit and compassion.

Moderator: Jacqueline Francis is an art historian and educator. Her book, Making Race: Modernism and “Racial Art” in America, was published in 2012. She is a coeditor of Romare Bearden: American Modernist, published in 2011.

Introduction by Queer Cultural Center’s Artistic Director Pamela Peniston.

This series is funded in part by Endeavor Foundation for the Arts