Angelbert Metoyer Is 'Speaking in Tongues'

As part of an unprecedented, two-part exhibition this summer in two different states, on Saturday, August 30, Tripoli Gallery in Wainscott opens “Speaking in Tongues,” the second installment of a new show featuring work by artist Angelbert Metoyer. The show will remain on view at Tripoli Gallery through September 30.

Part one of “Speaking in Tongues,” was presented in late June and early July at MUSE Winston-Salem, a former Federal Tax Bankruptcy Courthouse, in North Carolina. The show was offered in conjunction with the fourth year of the 1Love Festival. Metoyer, who initiated the festival’s artist-in-residence program, completed the large body of work being shown in both destinations — all works making the physical journey from Winston-Salem to Wainscott, and some works being included in both venues.

During the North Carolina residency, Metoyer immersed himself in the Winston-Salem culture bringing his art practice and participation in social interactions and engagements including those with students at various institutions. The mission of the 1Love Festival is to cultivate transformative experiences that center and celebrate the African diaspora’s history and culture through art, innovation, entrepreneurship and wellness. The festival organizers see art as a catalyst for consciousness-raising and a pathway to promote cultural pride within individuals and communities and the debut of “Speaking in Tongues” was well received by a captivated audience with a verbal introduction from the mayor of the city.

“My interest in Winston-Salem was its name sake,” states Metoyer. “However, after discovering its connection in bridging the south and the northern regions of American contemporary art makers, [it also became about] putting an X in the earth for the unknown becoming known. There is a history of creators pre-Black Mountain [College] and the eventual moment of its extension into the Hamptons in New York.

“Coming from the deeper southern states… there’s a certain impulse somewhere between what is quick and what is sustained like sound,” he said. “There’s something in the works created there that for me, will be connected to the place where something happened, is remembered and to adorn what is left behind.”

Working in a variety of mediums, Metoyer has perfected his craft and aesthetic over the years. Some of his new paintings debuting at Tripoli Gallery such as “11011 (Self Portrait),” “TBT” and “Rejoice” (all created in 2024) reveal his interests, struggles and triumphs through his process and stylization of surface. This new body of work toes the line between abstraction and figuration. His vision is largely abstract, but every once in a while likenesses emerge through brush strokes and mark-making as if conjured by something beyond consciousness.

Not unlike the artists who trained at Black Mountain College in the 1960s (famed East End artists Willem and Elaine de Kooning taught there in 1948), with “Speaking In Tongues,” Metoyer participates in traversing a journey between North Carolina to New York. In this instance, his path follows those with artistic inclinations as well as ancestors who sought freedom on the land. The art on view reflects all of the elements on the East End — sky, land and sea. And his path is a path of his own making, connecting historical threads of the past with his contemporary, living, breathing, and spiritual practice.

Tripoli Gallery is located at 26 Ardsley Road in Wainscott. Visit tripoligallery.com for details.