Marcus Guillory— an author, entertainment lawyer, music producer, professor, television and film writer.
“I’ve done a lot of stuff,” said Guillory.
But let’s talk about Marcus Guillory—the visual artist.
About 14 years ago, Guillory was in Houston, writing a vampire movie at a cousin’s studio. His cousin read something else he had been writing and said, “Man, Gil, this could be on the wall.”
It was then, that Guillory started his journey in visual arts. He shared he spent about the next five or six years studying visual artists such as Lawrence Weiner, Barbara Kruger, Jasper Johns—who utilized language and typography in their work.
“As the years went by, the quality of my words in terms of recognition, having a fanbase as a novelist, dealing with network notes and film and TV, the strength and confidence as a professional writer I already had, the question was—how would this translate into an object to be regarded?” said Guillory.
He shared it was about five or six more years of studying it and then going into writing, editing and figuring out what mediums he would be using to create his pieces. On February 8, Guillory debuted, ABRACADABRA at The Loft at Liz’s. He described his visual arts, one in particular about a popular, fast-food chain and the meaning behind it.
“Utterances, moments, short stories and stories of people’s lives,” said Guillory. “For example, the McDonald’s sign, upside down and then wax poetic into another idea of how to perceive the idea of food, food deserts, food for folks, who need food and where they can get it, that’s why the time is in there in the back.”
Guillory continued, “There’s a variety of meanings that are happening, the other thing is that some of the things are dense and have full stories in it, but I can promise you that the most important thing is not so much what I’m saying, but what it elicits from the viewer.”
He shared that his art is designed to activate the viewers cognitive mechanics. Guillory has already sold some of his works to collectors. He shared what some of his favorite pieces are in ABRACADABRA and where he draws his inspiration. =
“The red series is interesting in that it was very intense to make that,” said Guillory. “I did about seven of those and some of the work in here comes from my first novel, there are pieces of it.
“A couple of pieces come from my last film, ‘Gully’, which made a whole lot of noise like that—‘abracadabra mutha*****’.”
ABRACADABRA is a thought-invoking experience using words, phrases and culture in a cool way. There is even a piece there that acknowledges the recent wildfires that carries an emotional weight to it. One of the pieces in particular is separating the men from the women.
“So, that one’s interesting because you know that’s the second version of that one and what I found very telling, because I did the first one in Houston, was that cis and lesbian women, from the ages of 20 to about 60 got it immediately, immediately that’s who responds to that and they get it, they get it,” said Guillory.
“They get why I put the black thing right there.”
“The Loft at Liz’s has been here for 18 years and we are a gallery that really deals and confronts issues in a wonderful way through artists, who we have a lot of things to say and share,” said Liz Gordon, owner, gallerist and curator of The Loft at Liz’s and Liz’s Antique Hardware.
“We are community-based and a lot of our clients downstairs at Liz’s Antique Hardware are from Leimert, where they still have original architecture which is amazing. We’re all part of a community and right now we really need to be strong.”
Guillory shared about the kind of artist he is and how important it is for his art to be original, true to him and honoring the Black Diaspora.
“I’m not going to Zora Neale Hurston it and do ebonics,” said Guillory about his visual art. “I’m going to keep elevated language there and give a certain kind of respect and deference to my viewers.
“We are intelligent people and a lot of times, we are distracted by those things that are familiar that may be a little more, lower frequency for lack of a better word, there’s a whole argument saying why that’s important and I understand that, but I’m a novelist man, I’m going to give you that real heat and I’m going to give it to you like that.”
ABRACADABRA will be at The Loft at Liz’s until March 22.
