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Here is the press release for the show Marilyn Banner has curated for PG Community College, called "Strong Work Hot Topics":

PRESS RELEASE: STRONG WORK HOT TOPICS

STRONG WORK HOT TOPICS, opening on Monday March 13, 2006 at the Marlboro Gallery of Prince Georges Community College, features the work of Marilyn Banner (Bethesda, MD), Tom Block (Silver Spring, MD), Donte’ Hayes (Atlanta, GA), Dylan Scholinski (Wash. DC), and Clarissa Sligh (NYC). This exhibit brings together five artists whose work addresses, in powerful and direct ways, peoples’ struggles for survival in the face of violations of human rights and dignity. Evoking issues of anti-Semitism, racism, political imprisonment, and gender identity intolerance, the work asks us to re-consider our own beliefs and assumptions about “those others,” and to take responsibility for ending scapegoating of all kinds.
STRONG WORK HOT TOPICS runs from March 13 to April 5, 2006 (noon.) It is free and open to the public, Monday – Thursday, 9 am – 8 pm and Friday, 9 am – 3 pm. The opening is March 24 from 6-8 pm. Snow date: March 31, 6-8 pm.

Tom Block created the Human Rights Painting Project to highlight the struggle for human rights the world over and the important role that Amnesty International plays in working toward that goal. These large scale, often raucous portraits bring together man’s best and worst impulses – the heroes of the images are a counterpoint to the authorities that forced them into that role. We are left with the uncomfortable question of which group is more typical of our human race, and which the exception.

Clarissa Sligh’s “Reading Dick and Jane With Me,” 1989, was created as a site of resistance in which to interrupt “the authority” of the old elementary school textbooks called “Dick and Jane Readers.” “As a young student I believed that Dick and Jane’s white upper middle class suburban family of the 1940s and 1950s represented the norm and that my family life was an aberration. The Dick and Jane model was the construction to which we were to aspire.”

“It Wasn't Little Rock” (2004-2006) is the story of Ethel Mozell Thompson, the daughter of a sharecropper from North Carolina, and her children, including the artist Clarissa Sligh, who were sent to white schools and became participants in civil rights lawsuits. This book is a personal story of struggle, anger, pride – and the revelation of a family tragedy that led Ethel to her activism.

Donte’ Hayes’ artwork examines the lingering social problems of African Americans through the invented character, the Gingerblack Man. He is a hybrid icon of the Gingerbread Man and the racist Sambo image, transformed into an anti-racist hero of healing and understanding. The Gingerblack Man acts as the consciousness of African Americans, and his thoughts, actions, and feelings are the focal point of this work. The images are gently disquieting, humorous, and playful, and speak directly to our contemporary aesthetic.

Marilyn Banner’s work, “Still With Us,” refers to anti-Semitism and the survival of the Jewish people. The work was inspired by a trip to Terezin, the “model” concentration camp near Prague, and questions about the roots of anti-Jewish oppression. Banner used photographic images from her trip to Prague and Terezin, photos of relatives and other Jews, and quotations from early Christian anti-Jewish texts to create these black on yellow shaped cloth paintings which remind one of gravestones or houses.

Artist Dylan Scholinski was born Daphne Scholinski in 1966. As a teen, the artist spent 3 years in mental institutions, having been labeled mentally ill for not appearing to be a clearly heterosexual female. Dylan’s art is autobiographical and speaks directly to the emotions. The content of his paintings deals with the experiences he had leading up to and during his years in a mental hospital and continues to reflect the struggles he faces today, being transgender, gay, human, as well as an ex-mental patient.

Marlboro Gallery is in Marlboro Hall on the Largo Campus of PG Community College.
Hours are Monday – Thursday, 9 am – 8 pm and Friday, 9 am – 3 pm.
Telephone: 301-322-0965

Prince George's Community College, is located at 301 Largo Road, Largo, Maryland.
The College is accessible from Central Avenue (Route 214), Landover Road (Route 202), and Capital Beltway (I- 95/ I- 495) Exits 17A and 15A.

Contact: Marilyn Banner: 301-493-5729; marilynbanner@verizon.net

Dylan Scholinski, "Bull's Eye"


Marilyn Banner, "Prague Cemetery"


Tom Block, "Wei JingSheng"


Donté Hayes, "Revolution"


Clarissa Sligh, "Witness"