Charles White

Charles White was a Black American artist, activist and educator who was born in Chicago on April 2, 1918 to a domestic worker, his mother, and a railroad and construction worker, his father, but was raised, primarily, by his mother on the south side of Chicago. where he would spend his childhood in the public library because his mother could not afford a babysitter; there he developed an interest in reading and art. He spent his adolescence and young adult years studying on scholarships at the Chicago Institute of Art, sighting his influences as Mitchell Siporin, Francis Chapin and Aaron Bohrod. He was part of the Black Renaissance of the thirties and forties, teaching and creating art at Dillard University in New Orleans in the early forties where he met and briefly married fellow artist, Elizabeth Catlett, after participating in Franklin Delano Roosevelt New Deal known as the Works Progress Administration both federally and, locally, in the state of Illinois. He spent the last fourteen years of his life (1956 - 1979) teaching and producing art at the Otis Institute in Los Angeles----not only influencing his students but gaining new insight from them which served to influence the trajectory of his art as well. His art depicted the plight of black Americans and their effort in gaining their freedom from their oppressors----highlighting the slings and arrows of white supremacy and the devastation it left in its wake. He, also, resisted the push at the time by his peers to move from figurative and representational art to abstraction. He was considered a classicist, specializing in drawing, painting and lithography, being heavily influenced by Mexican muralists such as Diego Rivera. 

I went to Charles White: A Respective at LACMA which is housed in the Resnick Pavilion. I was, immediately, drawn to his ink on paper because how painterly and expressive it is and as a painter myself, I am always searching for the most auto graphic qualities in my work and that of  others.Therefore, it comes as no surprise that his lithographs are what most stood out to me, in particular, his colored lithograph series "Love Letters I, II, & III". Each piece is medium format which allows one the opportunity to discover them from a bit of a distance and then, slowly, be drawn closer.  Love Letters I and II are in monochrome and appear to be in direct conversation with each other.  Love Letter I depicts a young woman looking straight ahead; she is expressionless; her image is cropped just above the crown and right at her clavicle in a rectangular field that occupies the upper third of the print and flanked to either side by very erratic and heavy marks, The lower two-thirds consist of a vast field of, slightly, more ordered and, vaguely, more uniform marks, resembling a cubist field; centered are two rose blossoms

In a pale reddish tone, expressing the beauty and chaotic tumult of youth. Love Letter II, similarly, depicts the bust of an Afro'd woman, only this time, she appears to be beyond child bearing years with a similar expression and orientation only contained in a circular fashion with a soft blended background. Directly, below her is a rose blossom in deep red. Both the rose and the disk float suspended against the stark backdrop of the cream colored pape, almost minimalist in comparison to Love Letter I as if to express the more sophisticated wisdom and depth that the comes with the experience of age. Love Letter III seems to exist in a much more indirect conversation with I and II in a stark departure from the monochromatic scheme of I and II. Love Letter III is dominated by color in a vast color field of deep teal that encompasses the upper two-thirds of the print with a pale coral conch shell suspended above a male figure's bust wrapped in some sort of heavy robe in the lower third where the deep teal transitions, softly, into the most transparent version of itself it can be, without being colorless. The use of the teal seems to be sampling Rothko's deep contemplative color fields with a touch of Dali like magic in levitating conch, though not fully going all the way with either aesthetic. White is actively participating in the Black artistic tradition of "intertexuality"; of repetition with revision; grounding Dali's whimsy, and Rothko's untethered emotion in the very literal, yet hauntingly ethereal description of a young Black man. A dynamic tension is created; not in the marks, but marriage of these seemingly divergent stylistic approaches into something new and exciting. Here White has found "the notes between the notes", and he plays them into legend. 

Charles White: A Retrospective is a monumental exhibition. Concerned with the Black body in all its splendid possibilities good, bad, tragic and triumphant. 

Damned Sleep by Andres Arizaga Cordero

I found this print at the Museum of Latin American Art. The artists name is Andres Arizaga Codero and they are from Quito, Ecuador. The name of the print is “Damned Sleep” it is a color serigraph that is 16.5 x 24 inches and it was made in 2019. The print itself had a green, black, and white and it depicted nightmarish imagery. There were 3 flying heads with bat wings on the left, a voodoo doll looking figure on the right, and 5 flying ghosts in the top right. The flying heads looked like they were laughing in a evil and psychotic way and the doll looked very similar to the doll from the horror movie “trick or treat.” I think the figures were meant to represent a nightmarish and haunting feeling of dread and they were probably seen in a nightmare by the artist who made the print. They also had a very hand drawn pencil look to them which i appreciated. The background of the print is green and black. It had a sketchy and hazy look to it that adds to the atmosphere of the print. The size of the print was pretty big too and was most likely made in two parts, but printed on the same sheet of paper. The imagery immediately drew me in and became my favorite piece that i seen from that visit and it reminded me of some drawings that i have done in the past and of course of the horror movie “Trick or Treat”. I can relate to the ideas that were explored in this piece because i’ve had some pretty creepy nightmares too and i love the theme of horror and nightmares.

Memoirs of a Banana Girl

This last month, a friend and former classmate of mine named Lizzy Choi had her senior exhibition titled Memoirs of a Banana Girl at the Eduardo Carillo Gallery on the UCSC campus. Her works were mainly woodblock relief prints and paintings. Lizzy Choi is an LGBT+ Korean-American artist and expresses herself with imagery of her personal life, struggles with mental illness, and cultural experiences both traditionally and in the landscape of American culture as a minority.

Some of her more impressive print pieces were her reduction based woodblock relief prints. Lizzy’s art tend to either have a blue red color pallette, or bright neons yellows and pinks, in both her prints and paintings. The first print pictured below, “BLUE VIOLETS” is a 19x25 inch woodblock, printed as  4 layer reduction. This process is where with each layer of the print, the layer is carved and printed on one woodblock, and then carved more for the following layer (usually printed from the lightest to darkest color), until the last layer is completed. The second print pictured below, “JADE BRAINS,” is a 19x23 inch woodblock, also with a 4 layer reduction. The last print shown here is a 21x25 inch woodblock relief titled “토니학” and 5 layer reduction print.

Her pieces are consistent with colors and themes, usually subtle darker colors for imagery she creates of quieter scenes or still life pieces, and brighter eye catching colors for her more energetic prints and paintings like her piece “토니학.” What I love about Lizzy’s work, is the way she expresses different aspects of herself and her life experiences. Her prints shown here are more about her cultural experiences, but still show emotions such as excitement or comfort. Some of her other paintings in her gallery (and portfolio in general), she strongly expresses her personal struggles with depression and anxiety. I enjoy the way Lizzy places herself within her work, and it inspires me to want to create more personal pieces within my own work, as I have struggled expressing my emotions or personal opinions into pieces or having deeper meanings to my work other than what is on the surface.

Comics and Politics

Museum - MOLAA

Exhibit- Grafica America

Artist - Jose Revuelta

Jose Revuelta produced this piece as a college student at Pasadena City College. Jose used the Screen Printing department in his school to make this print which can be seen at Flea Market Comics where it is displayed for the public to view. Because of this print, Jose has earned a scholarship and his artwork has earned the place in the GRAFICA AMERICA museum exhibit at the Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA).

This piece is an 8 layer print on a 24 by an 18inch sheet of paper. Although not explicitly stated, it is very likely that the artist used photo emulsion to produce it.

This image is a political parody of DC’s action comics #1 cover art in which Superman is carrying a car and a man is fleeing in fear. Below is the image as provided by https://www.comixology.com/Action-Comics-1938-2011-1/digital-comic/12613.

He has replaced the superhero with an immigrant and the man in the suit is replaced with Donald Trump wearing a tie made in China.  Showing how contradictory he is.

Jose Revuelta’s work stuck with me because comic books are a huge part of my life. He is of Latin descent and you can see this piece relates to his identity as the title has a word in Spanish  and the farm worker, is dark skinned; someone often associated as being a day laborer

What I love the most about this piece is the analogy he incorporated into this piece. The way that he represented Superman by using the immigrants and the man representing  Donald Trump who is in sheer terror. The analogy he bestowed upon his audience was smart and that’s what stood out to me the most.

I went to the Charles White: A Retrospective exhibition at LACMA. Charles White was an African American artist who showed an affinity for art at a young age. He was raised by a single mother who could not afford childcare, so she would leave him at the library while she worked. There, he read and learned about art. As he studied art, he realized that most fine art only featured white bodies, so as an artist, he strived to represent and celebrate blackness. He created art with a wide variety of media, from ink, pencil, tempura, and of course, printmaking.

My favorite print piece of his was a large lithograph print titled Love Letter III it is a large print of a face looking upwards with eyes closed, wearing a scarf over their head and shoulders. Floating above their face is a large, pink conch shell. The background is a blue to white blend. I think the color choice in this print is gorgeous, I love how the pink and blue contrast to give the image energy, but on their own are subdued colors. I also like how symmetrical this piece is, it gives a sense of balance. The part i found most interesting about this piece was the shell. I looked closely to see how many layers it was and I think it is only three, maybe even two. It's amazing how much depth, detail, and color range White was able to get in this shell using such a limited number of layers. The same goes for the figure at the bottom of the composition, which is only one layer. Even with one layer, White still manages to achieve a full range of values. White had several other linoleum cut prints but Love Letter III was definitely my favorite. 

Young Farmer, 1953

Micah, 1964

Solid as a Rock (My God Is Rock), 1958