A much older piece of mine, “The Promised Land 3” will be included in the “TRUTH TO POWER Community Art Show”, juried exhibit at Pleiades Gallery in Durham, NC. The opening reception is Friday, August 16, 2013.
https://www.facebook.com/events/651516674875744/
The group show focuses on matters of social justice. I decided to enter this piece because, over the years, my work has been heavily influenced by various social issues and cultural concerns, which relate to my tribal and family history and tri-racial identity (Black, White and Indian), and I thought it would be good to start to dig this series out from the closet.
It was while I was working as a bronze technician after graduating from Tyler that I created the “The Promised Land” series. The work symbolizes the alienation and cultural displacement within society’s melting pot. These street scenes introduced juxtaposed characters based on neighborhood vagrants that I had observed. One of these disillusioned characters, a homeless Black woman donning a platinum blond wig, was derived from a previous oil painting series I had done for my senior project at Tyler entitled “Suicide Blond”. All these paintings and drawings are part of the “All American Series”.
I chose the medium of pastel to illustrate these stories of emotional existence in an attempt to counteract the over blending taking place in my paintings at the time. Drawing in pastel helped me create more distinction between separate components. Later I turned to collage as an exercise to remedy the problem. For more about my process and the connection between pastel and collage, click here:
See below for more examples of works from this pre-1990 series:
