a-Historical Landscapes
“a-Historical Landscapes”, uses as its source the 19th century landscape prints typical of the Hudson River School, with the addition of details that may at first glance appear incongruous or anachronistic. The actions in these additional “edits” are in practice very close in historical contemporaneity to what may have occurred while the original printed illustrations were made. It is the absence of the co-existence of these disparate images that this “decolonizing” painting project aims to interrogate and to serve as a corrective.
The first prints in these series will be exhibited in "Madness in Vegetables" at the Samuel Dorsky Museum, located at SUNY New Paltz, the site of recent "decolonizing" efforts where names of slave owners were removed from student dormitories. The exhibition runs through November 15, 2019.
Special thanks to all the staff at Fall Kill Print Works at Poughkeepsie Underwear Factory for invaluable help with this project.
The first prints in these series will be exhibited in "Madness in Vegetables" at the Samuel Dorsky Museum, located at SUNY New Paltz, the site of recent "decolonizing" efforts where names of slave owners were removed from student dormitories. The exhibition runs through November 15, 2019.
Special thanks to all the staff at Fall Kill Print Works at Poughkeepsie Underwear Factory for invaluable help with this project.
Strange Fruit: Split Seed series
"Strange Fruit, Split Seed: August 3, 1920" (detail), graphite on paper, 72 x 42 inches, 2007
What shocked me most when I first saw the pages of the book of lynching postcards entitled Without Sanctuary; Photographs and Postcards of Lynching in America were the confident looks on the faces of the lynch mob staring back at me from the; the threat seemed implicit.
But what disturbed me even further was the sense that I also became a witness. In the act of just looking, I, like the other participants in the inhuman act that had occurred, also became accomplice to the crime.
"Strange Fruit, Split Seed: Lige Daniels" (detail), graphite on paper 72 x 42 inches, 2007
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"Strange Fruit, Split Seed: August 3, 1920", graphite on paper, 72 x 42 inches, 2007
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Re-editing the photographs, separating the lynched from the lynch mob, is my act of transforming them, to make them neither objects of celebration nor condemnation, to make the viewer neither victim nor participant. Manually reproducing these photographs has been my way of taking possession of these anonymous objects of terror, defusing the potential threat, and dismantling the mechanism of terror.
I Draw & You Talk project
For one month, I offered free portraits at Matteawan Gallery in Beacon, New York. Visitors were invited to sit, enjoy a cup of soup and record a conversation about the topic of the day. 109 portraits of Beacon residents (including Beacon’s own Mayor!) hung in the gallery until the end of the month when participants could pick them up. The drawings and several audio recordings were compiled on this blog.
"I Draw & You Talk" project in progress at Matteawan Gallery, Beacon, NY, 2016
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N*gatives series
N*gatives aims to create type of alternative film history which narrows down films (American and international) in which race plays an outsized role. The series of drawings are based on the moment in which the actor utters the n-word at a crucial moment in the plot.
