Impending Futures, Eager Apprehension: A Graduating Artist’s Anxious Rant

As my impending graduation date of December 10th begins to loom closer and closer I’ve began to feel a very hot fire under my ass! I have sat down and actually realized what this will mean for my lifestyle and my art career. After December 10th, and weeks before, I will have to hold myself accountable and I will have to keep on track of my own assignments and deadlines without any written consequences…Thats kind of scary as someone who has only ever been a student. I went straight to VCU after Henrico’s CFA because I enjoy academia and the classroom environment. But now, that comfort is going away for along time. I am already becoming more and more anxious all the while doing what I can to line up cool opportunities for income and exposure.

The punctual, planning side of myself has come in handy recently. I took a long break from the administrative side of being an Artist because I got super discouraged by all the rejections I got from galleries (totally normal but still hurts) and I started to feel like I didn’t really know why I was making the work or why the work took the form it did. But after a semester of making a ridiculous amount of objects, some insanely amazing networking opportunities through my job at the Institute for Contemporary Art in RVA, and some much needed writing and revision I have gained a whole new confidence in my abilities!!! I think it also helped that I have been sticking to deadlines and making loose weekly plans that allow my small daily goals to compile into big ones!

I say all this to say, to all my homies who are in the same boat (or a different boat) than me feeling inadequate or feeling directionless or just feeling sad I offer these things that have helped me be more kind to myself and also develop my career in a meaningful way. These tips are going to be from my perspective as an emerging Fine Artist but they can apply to anything in your life.

1. Be specific about what you are doing, how you do it, and why. If you cannot explain your work or business, its intention, its form, etc then go back and write some stuff down. You will realize you know a lot more about why that you thought. For artist’s write at least a few sentences about your bodies of work or pieces as you make stuff.

2. Talk to people. Every gallery or storefront owner is just a person! You really never know who you are in the presence of so greet people and introduce yourself! Beware of being too pushy about your business/artwork though as this can come off as a bit rude and intrusive. Time and place. If you are not comfortable with speaking in public, you can shoot them an email or comment on their social media. Amazingly talented and influential people are super accessible nowadays.

3. Keep up with deadlines. I know I know the whole point of being your own boss is to set your own hours and whatnot. BUT! To actually progress and reap rewards and level up in your craft, you must at least recognize deadlines and other time-sensitive things. This is my biggest downfall besides not being active enough in my community! This is the reason I have not even applied to half the things I want! If you can hold yourself accountable on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis then you are sure to start seeing the good things pile up. It has helped me to create a short written list before I leave the house, usually in the morning around 10am. The main TO DO list is basic stuff like laundry and dishes and there is a list for my career. This short written list of career stuff includes responding to emails, writing about work, editing photos, submitting to opportunities, preparing canvases and the list goes on!! It has helped me to circle and focus on the 2 or 3 things that will have the most impact on your goals. Start with those, and go from there and see what happens.

Angels to Orishas: A Black Painter’s Introspective Continued

Full Text with Images

Abstract

In this paper, I will explore the development of my work and its connections to traditional African cosmology and aesthetic values. I will compare and contrast my use of naturalism and stylization now to my earlier work in high school and use specific works as turning points in my overall body of work. This essay will also broadly detail my shift in seeking inspiration from Christian imagery and the Mimetic Tradition to gathering inspiration from Dogon, Kuba, and Igbo imagery as well as the Cognitive Tradition. This essay aims to introduce my current body of work, its connection to traditional African value systems, and its relevance to other contemporary African American painters.

Introduction 

My figural paintings during high school were created under the direction of invested teachers in a European academy-like environment. I attended Henrico High School’s Center for the Arts for Visual Arts; a program shaped by the Mimetic Tradition popularized in European art schools that instructed students on how to achieve the illusion of naturalism in their paintings. While the program introduced classical tools of rendering, sighting, and draftsmanship it also exposed me to various eras of artwork through the program’s AP Art History course. I was enamored by the immediacy of Impressionist compositions and the complex, layered visual metaphors used in the work of the Early Italian Renaissance and synthesized these approaches to create works based on my feelings of loss, maturation, and my reactions to the racial climate of America in 2019. Now, my figural paintings are grounded on a deconstruction of form using neon strokes overlaid with stark, black marks. This shift was inspired by my introduction to the fundamental ideas in African art regarding abstraction, naturalism, symmetry, shape, and color through the teachings of Babatunde Lawal in 2021. My aesthetic impulses are currently derived from the decorative Uli patterns of the Igbo, Dogon cosmology, and improvisations interpreted as Kuba cloth.

Body

My approach to figuration in high school was highly influenced by the religious teachings of my grandmother and the Eurocentric canon of representation that most public schools adopt. This combined with my own implementation of anecdotal visual metaphors and reworking of ancient symbols allowed me to use the existing visual language of painting and religious representation to imbue my familial portraits with a sense of timelessness and relevance. The acrylic painting above, entitled Madonna and Grandchild was created in 2019 as part of a larger series that explored ideas of matriarchy, community and the Black family unit overall. This work in its namesake references the symbolic image of Mary holding an infant Christ that became popularized between the 14th and 16th centuries in Europe and still remains a symbol of divine femininity, sacrifice, piety, and motherhood. My work subverts that parent-child relationship by having the celebrated Madonna depicted as my elederly grandmother being gently caressed by her grandchild, who has taken comfort in their newfound role reversal of care-taker and parent. 

This more naturalistic approach to capturing this scene was important as I wanted to embody the tender reality of the moment. This decision was influenced by a necessity to allow the viewer authentic access into the scene which was underscored by the attention to detail and emphasis on the posture and expressions of the figures. I also felt the need to use the prominent visual style of naturalism to establish legitimacy in my artwork, just as African artists were encouraged to abandon their ancestral techniques in favor of Eurocentric ideals in order to achieve prominence during the early rise of Modernism. An era defined by the paradox of European artists’ interest and appropriation of indigienous African aesthetics and African artists’ synthesis of Western techniques with their own vision to comply with the standards of what was deemed acceptable and intellectual in art during the early 20th century.

My painting The Transfiguration of Hillside Court references both Raphael’s Transfiguration, painted between 1518 and 1520, as well as images of police brutality circulated during the Civil Rights Era. This 16in by 20in acrylic painting on canvas depicts a group of Black children playing in the cooling spray of a water hose operated by nearby firefighters. The scene is brightly lit, as saturated pigments dance across the grass and figures. They are accented by a plume of titanium white bursting from the hose and across the scene. The scene was painted symbolically rather than literally, as the figures and architecture are reduced to bold strokes of color and value. A choice that transfigures the space into one of vitality and light through the deconstruction and staging of the environment as metaphorical space. This was the first painting in my shift towards graphic, gestural, and more abstracted interpretations of the figure. This work was painted in response to the rise in documented Black deaths caused by police brutality that were popularized during my lifetime by the deaths of individuals such as Trayvon Martin and George Floyd.

 The work also responds to the reputation of the area depicted, Hillside Court in Richmond, Virginia. An area unfortunately known for a high rate of poverty and gun violence, but nonetheless still capable of producing joy and joyful moments. I wanted those ideas in this work to counter images of Black suffering that dominated the media as the main narrative of the Black experience solely being based on oppression and death. 

As of 2022, my figural work has taken a huge shift inspired by the spiral and zigzag motifs central to Dogon cosmology and design, improvisational geometric designs of Kuba cloth, and the immersive Uli designs of the Igbo. In my figural paintings, I have adopted a more symbolic representation of the figure in line with the African Cognitive tradition as I create the works partially from memory without the intention of evoking reality. Through my process, I am able to visualize the invisible and create external representations of my internal reactions to things around me. A distinct difference between my work and the work of the Dogon is my work’s inability to function as a spiritual object, rather it strictly acts as an aesthetic medium between viewer and ornament allowing for unique viewer experiences. 

The exaltation of the artist and creativity central to my practice stems from Dogon cosmology; in which, the bipartite Supreme Deity called Amma creates the universe by throwing balls of clay around the cosmos. It is said that Amma went on to create the first archetypal humans and animals by molding experimental forms out of clay. This origin myth leads to the recognition of artmaking as recreating the primordial act that spawned the universe and thus leads artists and art objects to have a significant spiritual relevance in Dogon culture. Motion is also foundational in Dogon cosmology and its importance is underscored by their recurrent use of spiral and zigzag motifs in sculptures; usually known to represent the flowing of rivers or cascading rainfall. These motifs also symbolize the primordial motion set forth by Amma, and the oppositional complementarity of nature itself found in binaries such as hot and cold or night and day.

In my Family Drawings, I apply loops and swoops of neon colors using curvilinear forms that reference those motifs to evoke a sense of motion and complementarity between the brightness, darkness, looseness, and rigidity of the compositions. I then go back to refine the image with bold, black marks that allow for a collaboration between the looser, improvisational moments and the more controlled moments of gesture. This approach was inspired by the emphasis on the metaphysical and symbolic functions of art based in the Cognitive Tradition of Africa and my own approach to implement a lack of specificity in these figural depictions to increase access into the emotional and visual effects achieved by the compositions. As an artist, I act as an interface between material and product using my artistic process as a sort of performance. My works vibrate off the page and beam like energetic musical compositions, an intentional connotation based on my own love of music and performance and achieved through my use of neon pigments and rapid paint application. 

This connection between visual art and music is no anomaly amongst African and African American artists. The Kuba of the Democratic Republic of the Congo are famous for 

their construction and embellishment of textile called Kuba cloth. The cloth, pictured above, features various geometric designs that would then be cut into strips and rearranged as asymmetric, fractal-like compositions. The piecing together of form is akin to how I create these works, as each color is placed individually and layers are allowed to converge organically. The improvisational approach to these works is very similar to the work of jazz musicians in the early 20th century who would create spontaneous compositions and experiment with the layering of sound. 

My drawings also gain huge inspiration from the Uli designs of the Igbo, which feature repetitive sets of markings and patterns, usually derived from natural pigments, synthesized to create a dynamic visual appeal. The markings are said to have originated as bodily ornamentation on the Supreme Deity Ala that have become known to represent beauty. This origin myth explains the immersive implementation of Uli as universal decoration. While the patterns have unique symbolic interpretations, their use is more concerned with aesthetic appeal and they are used in every element of life from clothing and home decor, to cicatrization and hair styling. These patterns attracted me based on their graphic yet organic and sinuous nature. I felt drawn to the effect caused by the stark use of black and the mixing of visual textures caused by putting such a variety of marks together. This Uli obsession explains my current affinity for black paint when I have intentionally avoided using it in my earlier naturalistic approach as it would create an unrealistic, cartoonish effect in my deeper values. I have used Uli designs as an aesthetic basis and fused these traditional designs with my own highly saturated, neon, high contrast palette and terse, explosive linework to create images that are just as striking, hypnotic, and beautiful. Through the exploration of this synthesis in my work, I aim to increase the academic and historical complexity of my work while also recognizing the existing legacy of the African aesthetic on African American art.

Conclusion

In this essay, I introduced the development of my aesthetic impulses and technical interests in my artwork and studio practice thus far. Through the analysis of key pieces from my religiously inspired high school paintings, my current series of Family Drawings, and the aesthetics of Dogon, Kuba, and Igbo artwork I have discovered connections between my current studio practice and the legacy of traditional African kingdoms. Through the legitimization of my process as pulling from a longstanding tradition, my work is contextualized in a grander paradigm of African American painting and recognized as a continued exploration of these ideas. Most importantly, this essay aims to provide evidence of the importance of institutionalizing African art objects and dismantling their harmful or biased interpretations which ignore cultural complexity and sensitivity to the great variation in regional use of form. 

Bibliography

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Madonna." Encyclopedia Britannica, August 29, 2019. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Madonna-religious-art.

Gardner, Joanna. "Creation Myth and Creativity: A Multi-Disciplinary Study of Cosmogonic Narrative." Order No. 27547420, Pacifica Graduate Institute, 2019. http://proxy.library.vcu.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.proxy.library.vcu.edu/dissertations-theses/creation-myth-creativity-multi-disciplinary-study/docview/2315224145/se-2?accountid=14780.

Graham, Heather. "Raphael, an introduction," in Smarthistory, August 5, 2020, accessed April 26, 2022, https://smarthistory.org/raphael-introduction/.

Evans, Bronwen, “Kuba applique cloth, red, black, ochre dyes”. Digital image, Contemporary African Art, accessed April 25, 2022 https://www.contemporary-african-art.com/kuba-cloth.html

Ikwuemesi, Chuu K. “uliartnigeria”. Digital image, Grandmother The Definitive Record of Africa, January 13, 2015

https://grandmotherafrica.com/legendary-uli-women-nigeria-life-stories-signs-symbols-motif/

Lawal, Babatunde, “Equatorial Africa Kongo and Kuba”, Lecture, Oliver Hall, Richmond, Virginia, April 5, 2022 https://virginiacommonwealth.instructure.com/courses/50853/files?preview=5901730

Lawal, Babatunde, “Art of the Western Sudan–Dogon, Bamana, Senufo, Bobo, and Bwa, Lecture, Oliver Hall, Richmond, Virginia, February 22, 2022

https://virginiacommonwealth.instructure.com/courses/50853/files?preview=5902746

Lawal, Babatunde, “Modern Contemporary Art in Africa and African Disap Art”, Lecture, Oliver Hall, Richmond, Virginia, April 19, 2022

Rewerts, Ardis M. and Alira Ashvo-Munoz. "Off-Beat Rhythms: Patterns in Kuba's Textiles." Journal of Popular Culture 32, no. 2 (Fall, 1998): 27-38. http://proxy.library.vcu.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.proxy.library.vcu.edu/scholarly-journals/off-beat-rhythms-patterns-kubas-textiles/docview/195362450/se-2?accountid=14780.

Svenson, Ann E., “Kuba Textiles: An Introduction”, WAAC Newsletter 8, no. 1 (Jan 1986): 

https://cool.culturalheritage.org/waac/wn/wn08/wn08-1/wn08-102.html

Wikle, Thomas. "Living and Spirtual Worlds of Mali's Dogon People." Focus on Geography 59, (2016). doi:http://dx.doi.org.proxy.library.vcu.edu/10.21690/foge/2016.59.2f. http://proxy.library.vcu.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.proxy.library.vcu.edu/scholarly-journals/living-spirtual-worlds-malis-dogon-people/docview/1963136614/se-2?accountid=14780.