River House Arts  is pleased to present Desafinado Detroit, an exhibition featuring works by four accomplished artists with lifelong ties to the Motor City: Maugre (Maurice Greenia), George Graveldinger, Marie Tapert, and John Elkerr. Desafinado Detroit runs through March 21.

The word Desafinado is both a Portuguese term for “off key” and the title of a jazz standard. For the show’s organizer, John Elkerr, “off-key” or “out of tune” aptly reflects his approach to the exhibition and his own work. “To me, it’s about an unwillingness to follow blindly, and an ability to create enchanting but original disturbances.” For three of the participating artists, Maugre, George Graveldinger, and Elkerr, the show is a reunion of sorts as they each share a connection to the late Jacques Karamanoukian. From 1970 until his death in 2002, the Paris born gallerist and curator galvanized a community of outsider artists and surrealists in Southeastern Michigan, championing their works through independent exhibitions in both the US and Europe and in his own galleries - Galerie Jacque in Ann Arbor and Zeitgeist in Detroit. While Marie Tapert was not one of the artists showing with Karamoukian, she was a part of the community and would later become a close friend and mentor of Elkerr.

The Artists

Maugre (Maurice Greenia)  works in a multitude of formats and media ranging from poetry to drawing to sculpture, with many stops along the way. He is a native of Detroit and has lived in the artistic center of the city -- the Cass Corridor – for decades. With his surrealist vision, he’s been responding to his beloved city through good times and bad. Best known for his street art, including his enormous chalk drawings on the old Hudson's Building, Maugre has exhibited throughout the U.S. and Europe with some of the most notable figures in Contemporary Raw or Intuitive Art. He is represented in numerous private and public collections, including the Musee de creation franche in Belges, France.