Exhibit honoring Black culture, beauty now on display at Artworks Gallery
Feb. 3—Local artist, Kokomo Art Association board member and Artworks Gallery coordinator Ramona Daniels made quick little strokes as she overlooked her painting of a woman standing amongst a few green leaves.
It was Wednesday afternoon, and Daniels — was sitting quietly at her easel inside her second-floor Artyside Studio at the KAA's Artworks Gallery.
"I call it Eden," she said smiling, looking at the painting, "...like she's in the Garden of Eden."
A few minutes later, Cheryl Sullivan — president of the KAA — came into the studio and took the painting away to hang in a nearby hallway with some of Daniels' other artwork.
Along with Daniels' pieces, artwork from other prominent regional and local Black artists — Sunday Mahaja, JC Barnett III, Shailyn Nash and Tashema Davis — also adorned the second-floor's walls.
And on the first floor hung a section of photographs by ethnographer and KAA board member Robin Williams, dedicated to the jazz second-line funerals of New Orleans.
It's all part of a new KAA exhibit called "Black Pearls: An Exhibition Featuring Black Wisdom, Black Beauty and Black Culture," now on display at the Artworks Gallery through the end of the month.
Sullivan said the organization has wanted to put an exhibit like Black Pearls together for a long time now.
"We haven't done it before, and so I felt like this would be the perfect time," she said. "I talked to Ramona about it, and she thought it was a great idea. And then it just culminated into this. ... And I hope this inspires people. I hope they realize and come and see that we have a vibrant Black artists' community here, and hopefully people come and see things they've never seen before."
And there's a little something for everyone, Sullivan added.
For Davis, who said she brought around seven pieces to the gallery, the Black Pearls exhibit also presents an opportunity for people to appreciate and be immersed in the beauty that is Black heritage.
"I feel like it's my own personal mission to present to the world the opposite of what we're bombarded with in society," she said. "Constantly on the news, you hear about this Black body being murdered or you hear about that Black body being taken. It just seems like it's always negative imagery after negative imagery.
"So, with my skill, I want to present a different side," Davis added. "I try to show a more beautiful side, like an everyday regular person that happens to be in brown skin. So I just highlight the things that I find beautiful in my culture with people that look like me. ... It's not negative. It's not traumatic. It's not any of those things. I want to showcase beautiful imagery of Black bodies."
Barnett III agreed with Davis.
"I think Black artists, Black individuals, oftentimes are underrepresented in areas that can have such a tremendous impact," he said. "My appreciation for Artworks Gallery and them doing this event is just beyond words right now because I'm truly thankful for an opportunity as a Black man to really put myself out there and put my work on display."
Barnett III added he hopes people who visit the gallery also feel a sense of connection to what the artists were trying to convey through their pieces.
"It's about the expression that the artist has laid down on the canvas or the paper," he said. "And so as a Black artist myself, I just want the people to understand that this is what I was feeling in that moment, and I hope that you have as much appreciation for what I was feeling in that moment as you do when you view it."
Because at the end of the day, Artworks Gallery is for everyone, those interviewed said, and it should be celebrated.
"I'm so grateful for this exhibit," Daniels said. "I've always had a dream to be a part of something like this. ... And we just hope this opens the doors to fill the walls and have other artists come in and continue to make this a really vibrant place."
