Artist channels creativity, turns battle with the city into art
“James Dupree says that despite the city’s “You’re gonna love the arts in Philly” slogan, Philadelphia hasn’t been showing him any love.
Instead, Dupree said, he has been confronted with pain and despair over a continuing legal struggle with the city to keep his studio space in Mantua.
The city Redevelopment Authority wants to take his massive, 8,600 square-foot studio building, on Haverford Avenue near 36th Street, to make room for a supermarket and parking lot.
His studio is filled with 5,000 works of art – including wildly colorful pieces, mixed-media jewelry boxes with feathers, and a wall installation showing how the city helps developers take property from low-income homeowners.
To cope – even after suffering a stroke that he thinks came about because of the city’s pressures – Dupree, 63, created new artwork for an exhibit opening tomorrow at his Dupree Gallery, on 6th Street near Bainbridge.”
Russ, Valerie. Philly.com 28 February 2014.