Post #5
May 5th, 2020
Race is a conversation that a lot of people tend to shy away from and as black women, these 5 artists make it their mission to emphasize the importance of having these conversations and recognizing our past and our future. Mickalene Thomas focused on beauty and female empowerment & Toyin Ojih Odutola's work as an artist reminds of of this book called The History of White people which examines the origin of race and where in history did we start to identify by skin. Faith Ringold, Kara Walker, and Abigail Deville focus on our past and what we can learn from it today. Women artist in general face struggles in art, but black women tend to be the least recognized and put in exhibitions.
Faith Ringgold The Flag Is Bleeding #2 1997
Faith Ringold: Injustice
Faith Ringold is an artist whos work depicts the hardships African-Americans deal with today and in the past. She is a civil rights activist, political painter, sculpter, and performance artist. She combines African heritage through her creation of story telling quilts to emphasize the racial prejudice and African American perception of whites present day and in the 1960s. Faith Ringold emphasises in The Flag Is Bleeding #2 that “she and millions off other Americans have direct lineage back to slavery” and this is something that we have to ackowledge, the past still continues to affect the future and that is what she exhibits in her art.
Kara Walker: Race
Kara Walker is an American Contemporary painter, but she is known for her room sized black cut silhouettes. Kara Walker: Virginia Lynch Mob and Other works explorers the history of race, gender, sexuality and violence
in the South. This piece depicts a group of people on their way to a lynching. The exhibition is accompanied with other pieces that show images of sexual encounters in the south at this time and Kara Walker Virginia Lynch Mob, 1998
the vulnerability of black women. Kara
Walker chooses this subject to emphasize the relevance of the past and the importance of remembering that history.
Mickalene Thomas: Black Beauty (Body, Sexuality)
Mickalene Thomas is an African American contemporary African from Jersey. She works with rhinestones and vibrant colors to create large and eye catch portraits. Seeing yourself and for others to see you. Women are shown as glamorous and assured subjects, which related to Thomas's mother and her personality. She started to think about women like her mother and used her as an inspiration to celebrate black femininity and sexuality by claiming feminine space in art and expressing women in this confident manner. She looked at art history and famous paintings of women and through that, Thomas visualized those older artworks and she positioned the women in her work just like them. Thomas made a contemporary version of these historical paintings that represented female sexuality, beauty, and power. All of this is done through multiple mediums and sizes of paintings, collages, photography, video, and installations.
Mickalene Thomas Afro Goddess Looking Forward, 2015
Toyin Ojih Odutola: Blackness (Body)
Odutola is a contemporary artist who focuses on the “socio political construct of skin color.” Odutola is Nigerian born, but grew in in Alabama. She emphasizes blackness in her art and the idea that what we think is not the reality of what it is. All of her figures appear to be black because they are all draw in black ballpoint pen, however what we see is an all black painting but our view of the actual figure is obstructed by their skin color, so the viewer does not think their anything other than "black".
Toyin Ojih Odutola The Treatment 37, 2016
Abigail Deville: Injustice
Abigail DeVille Sarcophagus Blue, 2017
Deville is an Installation, Sculpture & Performance artist, Deville focuses on the history of racial violence, gentrification and lost history among-st blacks (whitewashed history). Deville uses discarded materials, to construct complex room installations unearthing the overlooked histories of Black Americans. She celebrates the bravery, and joy in black culture as well as the memorializing the suffering endured and embedded in African-Americans from slavery. She presents in her work the idea that we have to examine our own humanity, because things from the past clearly still reflect on today's society. Working with Charlotte Brathwaite in a performance sculpture installation, they did a remake of the Day The Earth stood still to emphasize the idea that we were on the brink of self destruction and it’s time that we see change is inevitable and needed.
https://jackshainman.com/artists/toyin_ojih_odutola
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/03/arts/faith-ringgold-art-basel-miami-beach.html
https://www.theartstory.org/artist/ringgold-faith/
https://www.faithringgold.com/about-faith/
https://www.mickalenethomas.com/
http://michelrein.com/en/artistes/expositions/12116/Abigail%20DeVille
https://www.montclairartmuseum.org/exhibition/kara-walker-virginias-lynch-mob-and-other-works
https://art21.org/watch/new-york-close-up/abigail-deville-listens-to-history/
https://art21.org/gallery/abigail-deville-artwork-survey-2/#29
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