Friday June 3, 2016 5:30 pm - 8:00 pm
MIFA Victory Theatre and Wistariahurst Museum proudly present Amor Fati & Motion Focus and evening of art and music featuring recent paintings by Christopher WIllingham and music by Anders Griffen.
Amor Fati & Motion Focus is the second event of the MIFA 2016 Spring Season following its presentation in April of the play Rèpertoires by La Compagnie Des Petits Champs from Paris, France. By combining the visual art of Amor Fati and the music of Motion Focus MIFA immerses the
audience in a spring night of sensuous color and abstraction with the sounds of classical, jazz and folk. Click here to reserve your ticket.
Christopher Willingham (Visual Artist) trained across disciplines. His work combines materials and environments blending drawing, painting, sculptural installation, photography and critical writing. In Amor Fati, “love of fate” he evokes themes from classical mythology with color and forms revealing powerful images in exploratory abstraction. He describes the overall effect of the work as offering a Stoic meditation on life as a transformative process and on the aesthetic as life itself. Willingham’s solo works and collaborations have been exhibited in New York, Boston, Germany and Turkey and throughout western Massachusetts. He maintains a studio in the Cabotville complex in Chicopee and lives in East Longmeadow. He has curated three annual Arts of the Valley exhibitions, each featuring over 70 regional and international artists and has been an adjunct professor of visual arts at Holyoke Community College (HCC) since 2000.
Anders Griffen (MIFA Debut). In Motion Focus, Griffen on drums and trumpet with Chris Gentes, tenor saxophone and Daniel Plane, cello will play in solo, duo, and trio settings. In Motion the ensemble balances individual contributions to group improvisation borrowing from classical, jazz and folk idioms. A recent resident of the Pioneer Valley transplanted from Brooklyn, New York, Griffen is a composer, trumpet player, and virtuoso drummer. He has appeared on numerous recordings and concerts across the United States and Europe with Frank Lowe, Roy Campbell, Jeffrey Lewis, The Walkmen, Winterpills, Diane Cluck, and Regina Spektor — including appearances at Lollapalooza, Primavera Sound, the End of the Road Festival, and a Peel session on BBC Radio 1.