“This powerful commission allows us to craft an inspiring artwork that narrates the rich history and culture of performing arts in New Jersey.”
yendorproductions.com
Founded by the late Rodney Gilbert, YENDOR is an arts organization dedicated to integrating public art and arts education into Newark’s cultural fabric. Gilbert believed this integration drives transformative change, economic development, and improved quality of life in resilient communities. With focuses on arts and stakeholder management, visual art, and theater (via the Yendor Theatre Company), the organization collaborates with municipalities, foundations, corporations, and educational institutions to facilitate equitable arts initiatives.
Within YENDOR’s visual art focus, artists Malcolm Rolling, Hans Lundy, and Kaishon Way specialize in creating beautifully immersive murals, which spotlight and address themes of cultural connectivity, student involvement, social inequities, and oral traditions. Malcolm Rolling is an Afro Impressionist with a multi-faceted approach bridging street art and traditional studio practices, utilizing industrial tools and inner-city materials. He masterfully fuses mediums like aerosol, ink, acrylic, airless sprayers, and repurposed materials to create dynamically vibrant narratives. His work centers on underserved communities, conveyed through rich expressionism, textures, and condensed symbolism.
Hans Lundy, a muralist and illustrator, employs an unconventionally imaginative art style to offer a figurative depiction of the human experience. His technique features a fluid shift in line, form, shape, and perspective. The artist’s rich Haitian heritage, particularly his birth in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, profoundly influences his expressively balanced approach. Meanwhile, Kaishon Way, a functional artist and industrial designer, creates furniture driven by communal connection. Inspired by nature, Way’s work reflects its forms, colors, materials, and spatial arrangements, aiming to shift the narrative of American design through an African American lens.