Category: black history
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Artist a Day: Alexandra Bell
“Words work as release–well-oiled doors opening and closing between intention, gesture. A pulse in a neck, the shiftiness of the hands, an unconscious blink, the conversations you have with your eyes translate everything and nothing. What will be needed, what goes unfelt, unsaid-what has been duplicated, redacted here, redacted there, altered to hide or disguise—words…
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Artist a Day: Lubaina Himid
In many ways, Lubaina Himid’s art has helped me synthesize my thoughts and observations on London after my extended visit there this month. She’s been creating art for over 35 years and was recently awarded the Turner Prize by the Tate in 2017. As both the oldest recipient and the first black woman to receive…
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Artist a Day: Lezley Saar
“Cabinets of Curiosities” are small collections of ephemera curated by antiquarians and naturalists who used objects “to tell stories about the wonders and oddities of the natural world.” These collections of skulls, specimens, botanical sketches, and other flights of fancy were popularized during the 19th-century Victorian era and were displayed in small spaces…
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Artist a Day: Ruth E. Carter
I saw Black Panther today and just had to carve out some space here for stellar costume design. Ruth E. Carter’s career spans three decades with over 40 film credits under her belt including School Daze, Malcolm X, Crooklyn, What’s Love Got to Do With It and Selma. Her Afrofuturistic take on the regal, royal robes…
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Artist a Day: Lorraine Hansberry
In 1957, a 27-year-old Lorraine Hansberry was busy writing a play when out of sheer exhaustion and frustration she threw the manuscript into the trash. Two years later that discarded text became a theatrical hit when a Raisin in the Sun premiered on Broadway in 1959 and paved the way for Hansberry’s highly decorated career as…
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Artist a Day: Kerry James Marshall
Happy Valentine’s Day! I’ve written about Marshall numerous times here, and today I thought I’d go simple and celebrate KJM’s love for love. All of these photos are from Mastry at MOCA last year and it’s a show that I still think of often. Kerry James Marshall’s Mastry Examines the Power of the Image…
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Artist a Day: Amy Sherald
There is a confident sense of self in the subjects of Amy Sherald’s portraits whose gaze is as deliberate as their self-assured stance. They are dressed in sharp, bright colors with smart styling that merges retro and modern aesthetics into a style that’s not easily pegged to a specific genre. One painting features a young…
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Artist a Day: Rico Gaston
I love the graphic design elements in Rico Gaston’s paintings. My favorites include an ongoing series that marries collage and colored pencil on paper in images that radiate off the page. The black and white images of musicians, writers, entertainers, and activists are augmented by bold, colorful lines that amplify the subject’s energy.…
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Artist a Day: Romare Bearden
Looking at Romare Bearden’s Sea Nymph reminded me of the underwater world created by Ellen Gallagher. Bearden’s collage works transports viewers to a vast array of worlds both real and supernatural. His work deserves a much larger post, but I invite you to get lost in the images found on the Romare Bearden…
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Artist a Day: Derrick Adams
Derrick Adams’ collage work reminds me of the elaborate mosaics of Romare Beardon. I get delightfully lost in them. The artist currently has a show running at the Museum of Arts and Design called Sanctuary, that draws inspiration from the Jim Crow era Green Books, which were essential travel guides for African-Americans traveling…
Colony Little, Culture Shock Art 