Honoring Our Roots
Honoring Our Roots art show was a three day group exhibition featuring BIPOC artists in the Twin Cities. The show was curated and planned by artists Athena Sylvie (@vibranthues_) and Scorpio (@scorpiorising).
The theme of the show was creating artwork based on our background/roots. I created a new piece and also reworked an old piece I made in college.
The process.
Amerfrica: An amalgamation or Pangea of Africa (where I am descendant) and America where I am from. I made this because I have grown to dislike the term African-American. It’s a blanket term to describe people of African descent. When in reality majority of Black Americans have never been and some most likely will not ever visit our birthplace. African and Black culture are two different things entirely and giving us the same designator is not only annoying but also minimizes Africa as a country when in actuality it is a continent with 54 countries.
As a Black American I feel we as a people can be lost at times because we have no shared language except our creation of ‘slang’ which is largely commercialized in pop culture. we were stripped of our culture and language when were enslaved and the culture we have created is ‘mainstream’ and picked apart by the grazers and vultures. What do we have left? This might be an engraving to some but to others that might feel the same way I do this is a message of the ways we can rethink what it means to be a African descended person living in America.
We’ve been through so many racial name changes... why not create a new one? Some Black people don’t like the term ‘Black’ (which is another problem in itself) but one could argue we come in ALL different shades and hues so just giving us a color is not enough... that’s all I’m going to say. That has been on my mind for awhile, now I have a visual representation of it. I would like to really get a dialogue going with other Black people one day to get other POVs.
Blue Black: This piece is called “Blue Black”. It’s inspired by black people who are very dark in complexion almost looking ‘blue’. I took it literally by painting her blue hues. She is reminiscent of ‘Jim Crow’ era caricatures. The background is a collage of images and quotes that resonated with me. A few quotes are from Claudia Ranke’s book ‘Just Us’ and quotes from black women from an issue of #essencemagazine.
Her hair is adorned with cotton (decorations I bought from Michaels that were marked as Xmas decorations 🥴) as it has strong ties to the African American population in America.
Blue Black was made from a reworked canvas I bought from Savers. The frame was handcrafted by a local frame maker in the Twin Cities many years ago. The artist who made the Santa painting must've really liked it and probably framed it as a gift. The frame cost $128 originally. I bought the frame/painting for $7.99!
I started with painting over the canvas with black paint then added some sparkles because why not? I then waited for that to dry and mod podged magazine clippings and book quotes.
I made the face by drawing it on drawing paper and cutting it out. I cut out four layers of the paper to make it thick enough to add paint and decorations to it.
The hair is faux locs I never used for my hair. I always like to keep things around I never use or repurpose them for projects.
Blue Black is available for purchase, please see the ‘art for sale’ tab.
