Join Earl’s Garden & Mae’s Kitchen for an evening of food, fun, and culture as we celebrate ten years of art and gardening. The Ancestral Staff and Art Installation is […]
All Things Wood: Ancestral Staff and Art Installation Read More »
From Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, Ida B. Wells to Chairman Fred Hampton and Late Mayor Harold Washington and so many elders, we will share stories, rituals and co-create a series
The Power of Our Ancestors and Remembrance Read More »
Join Khadijah Kysia and Rhonda Wheatley for this hands-on workshop to explore and strengthen our resilience—our brilliance, our ability to make a way out of no way, and our capacity
Resilience & Renewal: Connecting with the Earth, the Ancestor and Your Hidden Gifts Read More »
Local Chicago artist Candace Hunter will unveil a decorative bench depicting stories she gathered from Bronzeville residents about their experiences living in Bronzeville.
Garden Griots: Community Storytelling with Candace Hunter Read More »
Join SkyART for Family Table: Hearth, an interactive dinner and performance featuring a collaborative shared soup created by two local chefs. Each chef will blend their unique traditions and cultures
Family Table: Hearth Read More »
Join us for a celebration of the end of the growing season, with food, entertainment, and presentations by our Youth Farmers. Kids and costumes are welcome!
Join us for the opening of ReSOURCE: Art and Resourcefulness in Black Chicago
Opening Reception for ReSOURCE Read More »
Join us on August 31st at Bronzeville Neighborhood Farm for a program as part of ReSOURCE: Art and Resourcefulness in Black Chicago. Artist Candace Hunter will unveil a public
Garden Griots: Community Storytelling with Candace Hunter Read More »
From Jean Baptiste Point duSable, Ida B. Wells to Chairman Fred Hampton and Late Mayor Harold Washington and so many elders, we will share story, ritual and co-create a series
The Power of our Ancestors and Re(membrance) Read More »
Join us for Art After Hours powered by Gertie, with screenings from filmmakers Rachel Gadson and Briana Clearly! We’re thrilled to host filmmakers Rachel Gadson and Briana Clearly
3831 CINEMA: FOR THE LOVE OF BLACK ARTISTS Read More »
3831 S. Michigan Avenue
Phone: +1.773-373-1026
E-mail: info@sscartcenter.org
Get the latest news and updates from SSCAC.
Copyright © SSCAC South Side Art Center. All rights reserved | Website by That’s So Creative, LLC
Works in EMERGENCE are diverse in their subject matter and media, but a few themes reappear throughout. Working in abstraction or in the traditionally peaceful genre of still life, artists like William Carter, Allen Stringfellow, and Jonathan Green express themes of interiority or sociability, history or modernity. Notably, Stringfellow and Ralph Arnold both experimented with media and materials and worked extensively in collage, which allowed them to combine abstract design, figurative imagery, and on occasion political ideas.
Viewers typically expect Black artists to focus on particular aspects of their social and political identities within their work. Where might those expectations come from? Still life, abstraction, and collage may express many different things about artists’ interior lives and their visual and social observation, whether connected to public manifestations of identity or not.
William Carter’s mid-century still life Untitled presents a group of vibrantly colored bottles that invite the viewer’s gaze, set against a similarly colorful background with floral elements like grapes and leaves. They give evidence of conviviality and might be interpreted as symbols of social gatherings, but they could also just be a collection of pleasing forms. We might put Carter’s still life in dialogue with that of Jonathan Green, who became close friends with Carter while living in Chicago. Green’s close-up view of an eloquently simple composition presents oranges, a pear, and a lemon in front of two vessels. Works like this piece call the viewer to examine the objects the artist chose to include, to consider how they interact with each other like bodies in space, and to reflect on their meaning within the traditional genre of still life painting.
Collage might suggest the piecing together of identity from different components that might not usually coexist, giving room for more expansive imaginations of meaning than a straightforward representational image might allow. It could also just be an inventive way of combining colors, shapes, and textures. Allen Stringfellow’s Untitled, a collage from 1962, brings familiar motifs from still life—fruit and flowers, desserts and glassware—together with imagery of artist’s models and performers. Layered with paint and tissue paper that frustrate the viewer’s attempt to get clarity on the subject matter, the bursts of form and colors hint at the splashy abstraction of Stringfellow’s untitled, textured painting made from house paint and particulate on cardboard. Here the artist tests commonly found materials to create new textures and plays with the creation of colors and finishes that diverge from “Western” academic painting methods.
In The Waiting, Arnold constructs a large collage from different paper components, lace, and paint. In the piece, elements of European and African art are placed in dialogue with one another, while some figures appear alone and isolated, others in large groups. Without giving easy answers, Arnold implies questions about social issues. Who is waiting, and for what? In his Love Sign II, which bears the words “Love is Universal,” Arnold asserts the equal validity of all types of romantic affection and love, utilizing collage to convey a more straightforward political message.
