Black History Month: Bisa Butler
For Black History Month, I thought I'd share some of the visual and literary artists who inspire me. Let’s talk about:
Bisa Butler and her work. Photo credit: BisaButler.com
Butler is a New Jersey-based textile artist. She’s known for her stunning quilted portraits of Black people, which look like collages pieced together with West African fabrics. Even if you don't know her by name, you've probably seen her work by now: her portrait of "Black Panther" actor Chadwick Boseman is full of color, joy, and sorrow. I love her work for so many reasons, including:
her incredible skill at creating shading and depth
her frequent use of vintage photos as reference material, many of which I recognize.
The next time you see her name and work, look closely at the eyes of the portrait subject. They're unbelievably expressive, even though they're literally just bits of cloth.
Now that I’ve introduced you to a couple of outstanding visual artists, let’s take a look at a writer I love. Stay tuned for the next blog post…
Black History Month: Deborah Roberts
For Black History Month, I thought I'd share some of the visual and literary artists who inspire me. In no particular order, let's start with:
Artist Deborah Roberts with her work in London. Photo credit: Anna Watson/ Alamy/ The Guardian
Roberts is a collage artist out of Austin, Texas. She's known for creating life-sized and larger-than-life-sized pieces "critiquing perceptions of ideal beauty," as she says in her artist statement. I love her work for so many reasons, but the top two are:
she's a mixed-media collage artist whose work is unmistakably fine art
she talks about race in ways that are simultaneously beautiful and devastating.
Her "Nessun Dorma" series in particular stays with me. It centers around George Stinney Jr., a 14 year old Black child convicted and executed for murder in 1944. Although his conviction was vacated (70 years later) as an unfair trial, he remains the youngest American ever executed by the state.
Every weekday I’ll post a new artist, so stay tuned…