Join us in person or via Zoom for Helen Evans Ramsaran (b.1943) in conversation with Anita N. Bateman, Ph.D. Ramsaran's solo exhibition, Strange Fruit, is currently on view at Welancora until January 4, 2025.
For approximately six decades, Ramsaran has been a risk taker and a force of nature; tenacious in her quest to achieve her vision in a singular, concentrated direction. She has charted her own path in exploring ancient African architecture and other indigenous traditions, capturing in bronze the secrets that mark the passage of time, elements from nature and the mysteries of worlds and creatures real and imagined. With solo exhibitions in the 1990’s and early 2000’s at the Chrysler Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Museum of Natural History in New York under her belt, Ramsaran’s new work is infused with more recent historical references that continue to communicate the cerebral and physical tension of her earlier work.
Born in Bryan, Texas, Ramsaran grew up in Ohio and moved to New York in 1973. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in Art Education (1965) and a Masters of Fine Art in sculpture (1968) from Ohio State University, where she studied bronze casting in wax under David Black and welding with John Freeman. She continued to hone her skills at the Seward Johnson Atelier in Princeton, New Jersey.
From 1968 to 1969, Ramsaran taught at Florida A&M University and later at Bowie State University in Maryland from 1970 to 1973. She studied photography at The New School for Social Research in New York (1973–74), and anatomical drawing at the Art Students League in New York from 1975 to 1976. In 2008, Ramsaran retired as an associate professor of sculpture at John Jay College of the City University of New York.
About Anita N. Bateman, Ph.D.
Dr. Anita N. Bateman (she/her) is the Vice President of Creative Direction at the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture in Charlotte, NC. She has held previous curatorial positions at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, TX; the RISD Museum at Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI; the Williams College Museum of Art in Williamstown, MA; and the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University in Durham, NC.
Bateman holds a Ph.D. in Art History and Visual Culture from Duke University, a Master’s in Art History from Duke University, and completed her undergraduate degree in Art History, graduating cum laude from Williams College. Her academic research has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council. Bateman was a 2024 Villa Albertine Museum Next Generation laureate, the Fall 2022 ARCAthens Curatorial Fellow and a 2022 Graham Foundation Grantee for the publication, "Where is Africa" (Center for Art, Research, and Alliances), co-edited with Emanuel Admassu.
