AUTHOR R. ANN SIRACUSA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . It isn't the destination that matters -- It's the journey that counts!
Contact me!
  • HOME
  • BLOG
  • BOOKS
    • All For A Dead Man's Leg
    • All For A Fist Full Of Ashes
    • Destruction Of The Great Wall
    • All For Spilled Blood
    • First Date
    • Halloween In The Catacombs
    • All In The Game
    • Family Secrets: A Vengeance of Tears
  • ABOUT ME
    • Resume
  • PHOTO ALBUMS
  • RESOURCES
  • MY ORGANIZATONS
  • BLOGS ABOUT ANN
  • Blog

BLACK WOMEN IN THE ARTS

2/17/2017

0 Comments

 
Because I like to know a something about the Celebration Days I post, I tried to follow up on the International Month of Black Women in the Arts. While I was unsuccessful at running down who declared February as the month, how it was acclaimed and by whom, I spent quite a while researching black women in the visual arts and found a number of wonderful artists working in various media.
Picture
Visual artists get little attention and few accolades from the public in general. Unfortunately, most Americans have little knowledge of contemporary artists of any sort unless visual arts are of particular interest to the individual. Of those who do get attention, black women artists tend get the least amount of the limelight. And I'm sure the Visual Arts field is not the only place this occurs.

Even if you're not into art, I hope you will appreciate the marvelous talents of these women. All of them have received many awards and are exhibited nationally and internationally. At least, drop some of their names at a party and see if your friends know anything about them. Watched for glazed over eyes and then enlighten them.


MICKALENE THOMAS​

Picture
Artist Mickalene Thomas (born in Camden, New Jersey, 1971) is known for her depictions of African-American women which express her multifaceted insights on "what it means to be a women." Her elaborate collage paintings use mixed media comprised of rhinestones, acrylic and enamel, the inspiration arising from her study of art history and classical genres of landscape, portraiture, and still life. She also works in the mediums of photography, collage, printmaking, video art, sculpture, and installation art.

According to Artnet.com, her works, often based in photography "utilize both the aesthetics of Western painting and the heavily sexualized blaxploitation films of the 1970s. Through appropriated imagery the artist addresses issues of femininity, race, and beauty alongside personal histories and childhood memories." She also draws inspiration from pop art and visual culture to examine ideas around femininity, beauty, race, sexuality, and gender.​​

KARA WALKER
Picture
American born Kara Walker (1969) is best known for room-size tableaux of cut paper silhouettes that focus on the "underbelly" of racial and gender tensions in America i.e. racism. She addresses controversial themes such as history, race, sexuality, power, and repression.  She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Atlanta College of Art and her MFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 1994.

According to TheArtStory.org, "Fresh out of graduate school, Kara Walker succeeded in shocking the nearly shock-proof art world of the 1990s with her wall-sized cut paper silhouettes. At first, the figures in period costume seem to hearken back to an earlier, simpler time. That is, until we notice the horrifying content: nightmarish vignettes illustrating the history of the American South."

​Thematically, she is a history painter "with a strong subversive twist" who helped revive the tradition of European painting of scenes based on historical or literary events. Her long titles are appropriate to this tradition.

LORNA SIMPSON
Picture
Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1950, Lorna Simpson received her BFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts, New York. By the time she graduated with her MFA from the University of California, San Diego, the art world considered her a pioneer of conceptual photography.

Motivated by the need to redefine photography for "contemporary relevance, Simpson was producing work that engaged the conceptual vocabulary of the time, as clean and spare as the closed, cyclic systems of meaning they produce."
​

"Her initial body of work alone helped to incite and significant shift in the view of the photographic art's transience and  Malleability" text quotes: lsimpsonstudio.com.

In her 2016 multimedia series (India ink and screen print on clayboard), the work entitled Polka Dot & Bullet Holes #2 "a bifurcated image juxtaposes a woman’s polka-dot dress with a constellation of bullet holes. The circular fissures serve as bleak foils to the stylish garment, the stark contrast of expressing one’s identity and losing it, swiftly and utterly. The austerity of the print only makes it more unnerving; the discomfort of knowing something is a symbol without knowing what it symbolizes. It’s the eeriness of a dress spotted on the side of the road, its wearer nowhere to be seen." Priscilla Frank, Art Critic, Huffington Post.               
WANGECHI MUTU
Picture
Artist and sculptor Wangechi Mutu was born in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1972. She is an important contemporary African artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
She pieces magazine imagery with painted surfaces and scavenged materials into collages which depict the split nature of cultural identity while referencing history, fashion, and contemporary African politics.  Her work is her own form of storytelling.
​

Exhibits of her work have been shown worldwide. Her first solo exhibition at a major North American opened at the Art Gallery of Ontario in March 2010. Her first US solo exhibition opened at the Nasher Museum of Art in March 2013

If you are interested in learning more, here are some other outstanding artists to look up, just to name a few.

● Emma Amos                        ● Carrie Mae Weems
● Ellen Gallagher                   ● Amalia Amaki
● Joyce J. Scott                     ● Alison Saar
● Faith Ringgold                    ● Elizabeth Catlett
● Sandra Rowe                      ● Julie Mehretu


Resources
http://www.atlanta.net/events/national-black-arts-festival/
https://www.facebook.com/nationalblackartsfestival/
http://www.forharriet.com/2013/02/15-black-women-visual-artists-you.html#axzz4YDaYjX6m

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickalene_Thomas
http://www.artnet.com/artists/mickalene-thomas/
http://mickalenethomas.com/

https://www.artsy.net/artist/kara-walker
http://www.theartstory.org/artist-walker-kara.htm

http://www.lsimpsonstudio.com/
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/global-culture/identity-body/identity-body-united-states/v/lorna-simpson
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lorna-simpson-interview-salon-94_us_57eeb9cde4b082aad9bb375b


0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author R. Ann Siracusa

    Novelist, retired architect and urban planner, world traveler, quilter, owl collector, devoted wife-mother-grandmother, great-grandmother, and, according to some, wild-assed liberal.

    Archives

    February 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    May 2016
    November 2015
    February 2015
    November 2014
    August 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    June 2013
    April 2013

    Categories

    All
    Africa
    Baboons
    Bagpipes
    Halloween
    Mopane-Mopani Worms
    Saint Patrick
    Samhain
    Shamrock
    Snakes
    Travel
    Veterans Day

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.