Unyielding eyes greet viewers at the entrance of the Don Russell Clayton Gallery in the Zuckerman Museum of Art. They belong to the feminine figure in Firelei Báez’s Fragrant with dawn and dew, drawing the visitor in.

“I love her use of the strong female figure and the power stare,” says Cynthia Nourse Thompson, associate professor and director of curatorial affairs at Kennesaw State University’s Zuckerman Museum of Art. “They’ve been referred to as shapeshifters, the way they somewhat bleed into the background.”

The figure is almost amphibian, colored in a wash of aquamarine, yellow-orange, pink and lavender that could blend into any tropical waterscape. She could be a siren. She could be a deity. And such fluidity captures one of the main themes of {UNDER}flow, the gallery’s latest showing, up through December 9. 

The exhibit is a celebration of five internationally hailed Afro-Caribbean artists who also share their sense of place and memory in the works.

“These artists are important, and, considering global events, it’s critical that what they have to say is finally being acknowledged,” Thompson says. “We hope that introducing audiences to these contemporary artists will prompt valuable discussions about history, cultural geography, race, gender and identity.”

The show explores fluidity and struggle beneath the surface, Thompson says, “including power and control, diasporic experiences, perceived histories and sexuality. This exhibit is so powerful because it’s figurative, it’s about the body and we as viewers automatically connect with that.”

Photographer Josué Azor documents stunning Haitian rituals and pockets of community like queer nightlife. Mixed-media painter Didier William, also from Haiti, merges myths, history and personal narrative into unconventional bodies that question Black queer identity. Báez, a Dominican Republic-born, New York City-based painter and sculptor, places imaginative creatures in different universes to signal healing and resistance. 

Multidisciplinary works by María Magdalena Campos-Pons, a leading figure in the New Cuban Art movement, a professor at Vanderbilt University and a performance artist, reveal ancestral stories of survival. And David Antonio Cruz, a North Philadelphia native with Puerto Rican roots, has autobiographical paintings drenched in nods to literature, fashion and pop culture while honoring the bond of chosen family.

 Cruz will speak at the gallery at 1 p.m. October 8 as part of Atlanta Art Week. 

“A lot of his work is about home and family,” Thompson says, pointing out the ceiba trees in Cruz’ darker works of shadowy figures emerging from, or vanishing into, the forest. Ceiba trees are found throughout the Caribbean, Mexico and West Africa. “The foreground and background changes as you look closer, representing the compression and expansion of time and space and how that also relates to family and growing older.”

In contrast, the chosen-family portraits are bursting with color. Green and blue limbs bounce off animal prints, polka dots and other patterns worn by pairs or groups of people who are entangled with each other. The strings of pearls and antique sofas they rest on bring a polished, classical flair. Then there’s whimsy in their expressions and tenderness in the ways their hands and bodies touch.

“There’s a staged, performative aspect to it,” says Thompson, adding that Cruz began as a performance artist. “He plays with perspective, the flattening of space and again the fluidity that also relates to gender expression. A lot of our students who are queer really gravitate to his work. They see themselves represented.”

The eyes — or, what is perceived by sight — are also a driving theme in {UNDER}flow.

Shapeshifters (as in Báez’ “Fragrant”) have no noses, lips or ears; only eyes. The untitled Campos-Pons piece, a lithograph on paper showing the artist in performance, shows mostly blue and green eyes crowded across her silhouette. Eyes are also in the background, suggesting the pressure of inquisition — and judgment or perhaps fascination — from every direction.   

Eyes are especially present in William’s pieces. “He developed the eye motif in 2014 to return some of the gaze back to the viewer,” Thompson says. “It’s about the gaze upon the Black body and being ‘othered.’”

Using printmaking techniques, William paints on wood, making his works a blend of carving and painting. In most of his paintings, rows of tiny eyes form the entire body. The bodies are massive, mysterious and are “made deliberately queer by refusing explicit sex and gender signifiers,” William writes.

His childhood in Miami surfaces in the environments he paints, like the marshland in Cursed Grounds: Louisiana Purchase or the raging waters of Baptism: We Cannot Drown, Nou Beni (“We cannot drown, we are blessed,” in Haitian Creole.)

Cursed Grounds: Blessed Bones, a copperplate print, is a slice of William’s recent venture into more obvious nature scenes. An endless blob-like figure made of eyes seems to crawl out of layers of earth, like the cultural histories that have been buried and left stirring underground.

“There’s often a line of demarcation above and below the surface,” Thompson says. “[In Baptism] there’s this struggle of not necessarily drowning but trying to breathe.” 

William doesn’t see the figures as singular bodies, though, so those lines beyond the environmental elements aren’t always clear. It’s a reflection of the distance that can exist between the psychological and physical bodies, he writes.

And the science fiction elements of his work pay homage to Haitian culture and mythology. Such cultural notes will be explored as the exhibit is also the final stop of the Haitian Studies Association’s annual conference. Morehouse College is hosting this year’s gathering, which will end October 8 with a discussion at the Zuckerman Museum. 

{UNDER}flow also includes Interchange, an annual collaboration of faculty from all disciplines in the College of the Arts on October 10. It is free and open to the public.

“It’s a performance in response to the artwork, so I’m excited to see their interpretation,” Thompson says. “It’s a fun way to share diverse perspectives.”

::

Angela Oliver is a proud native of old Atlanta who grew up in the West End. A WKU journalism and Black studies grad, daily news survivor and member of Delta Sigma Theta, she works in the grassroots nonprofit world while daydreaming about seeing her scripts come alive on the big screen.

It is difficult to overstate the immense ecological and cultural value of the plains bison to the lifeways and lands of Native nations throughout the Northern Great Plains. In fact, for many plains people, including the Lakota, their creation stories and worldviews say that there’s no difference between people and bison.

At one point—prior to European colonization and the devastation it wrought—bison were the widest-ranging large mammal in North America, numbering between 30 million and 60 million. But by 1889, only 512 plains bison remained after the ravages of westward expansion, market demand, and a deliberate effort by the US Government to eliminate the species to subdue the Native people that relied so heavily upon them.

In response to their tragic decline, conservationists—including Indigenous people—successfully brought the plains bison back from the brink of extinction to a population of more than 20,500 that we see today.

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By Native News Online Staff

October 02, 2023

Chickasaw artist Billy Hensley opened a solo art premiere at the Rainmaker Gallery in Bristol, United Kingdom on September 21 and runs until October 21. The exhibition features 12 pieces of his art.

Hensley’s brand of mixing abstract paintings with a touch of realism has appealed to art lovers and judges for more than a decade.

The debut in the United Kingdom marks the first solo showing of his highly acclaimed work at a venue outside the United States. The Rainmaker Gallery, located about three hours west of London, is the only First American art gallery in England. 

Hensley’s work caught the attention of the Rainmaker Gallery’s owner Joann Prince when she saw his art at the Indian Art Market in Santa Fe, New Mexico six years ago.

“I met the gallery’s owner about six years ago when I was attending the Indian Market in Santa Fe,” the 45-year-old master artist explained. “Joann Prince was interested in my work, and I have shown a few paintings at her gallery, but this is my first solo premiere.”

“We are so fortunate to have Joann and Rainmaker Gallery request a solo premiere,” Hensley said. “To have this occur from a chance encounter six years ago is exciting.”

Meanwhile back in the United States, Hensley will have a booth with his art at the Southeastern Art Show and Market (SEASAM) in Tishomingo, Oklahoma on October 6 – 7, 2023.

His SEASAM display will include artistic works not normally associated with his previous offerings. Hensley is highlighting his broadening interest in crafting jewelry and beading. Pendants featuring leather, beading and alligator garfish hide will be on tap for patrons visiting SEASAM

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