Tag: Black History Month
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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: Hilton Als, Nothing Personal
“We have, it seems to me, a very curious sense of reality-or rather perhaps, I should say, a striking addiction to irreality.” James Baldwin, Nothing Personal, 1964. The book “Nothing Personal”, a collaboration between writer James Baldwin and photographer Richard Avedon, had an instrumental impact on a young Hilton Als growing up in Brooklyn.…
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Artist a Day: Melvin Edwards
“The Negro has been run over for 50 years, but it must stop now, and pistols and shotguns are the only weapons to stop a mob.”~ Eli Cooper As a farmer and an outspoken advocate for unionizing farm laborers, Eli Cooper was determined to fight for better wages from landowners, however his advocacy was met…
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Artist a Day: Jack Whitten
“There’s no destination, there’s only the journey.” Jack Whitten came of age in the South and was involved in the Civil Rights movement while he was a student at Tuskegee and Southern University. After a demonstration in Baton Rouge left an indelible mark on his psyche, Whitten left Louisiana to attend Cooper Union in New…
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Artist a Day 2018: Mapping Midpoints
It’s February and the Culture Shock Art Artist a Day challenge is back for its 4th year! I’m excited to bring you some incredible artists whose work I will share every day this month. Some posts will include narrative bios of the artists, while in other posts I will let the art speak for itself.…
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Artist a Day Challenge, 2017 Finale (28): Augusta Savage
As we close out Black History Month and usher in Women’s History Month, today’s post on Augusta Savage made sense for a number of reasons — the most important being that today is the artist’s birthday. Born on a leap year 125 years ago, Augusta Savage’s life story still resonates and her career exemplifies an unyielding determination to her art and a strong dedication to her…
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Artist a Day Challenge (27): Kerry James Marshall
As I near the end of my Artist a Day Challenge for Black History Month, I bring you to the very first name on my list of artists to feature this year, and that is Kerry James Marshall. Mastry, Marshall’s critically acclaimed and highly anticipated retrospective is finally coming to MOCA Los Angeles in March after its two successful runs…
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Artist a Day Challenge (15): James Baldwin
James Baldwin, 1945. Portrait by Richard Avedon. Photo Credit, National Portrait Gallery Yesterday’s post about Dawoud Bey took a close look at his 2013 Birmingham Project, a photographic examination of church bombings and deaths that took place in Birmingham, Alabama on September 15, 1963. Bey’s work was an attempt to reconcile the present through an examination…
Colony Little, Culture Shock Art 