This post is part 2 of "Black artists you should know about." Make sure to check out part 1 here. I'm omitting pictures in hopes that you'll actually go to the links provided and take a look at each artists' work. Now, let's dive in.
According to his website's biography, Ligon "pursues an incisive exploration of American history, literature, and society across a body of work that builds critically on the legacies of modern painting and more recent conceptual art." You may be familiar with his light-up text-based installations, some of which I had the privilege of seeing in Los Angeles some years ago (his work Double America 2, 2014 is one of my favorites). Check out his website to see more about his work; I'm obsessed.
Barkley L. Hendricks
Unfortunately Hendricks passed away in 2017, but his art is of course still in circulation. According to artnet, Hendricks' portraits of Black men and women convey "a sensitivity towards the unique persona of each sitter, his works are both matter-of-fact and culturally pointed." His portraits are absolutely stunning; one of my favorites is YOCKS, 1975. You can really see the attention to detail in every brushstroke, and it's an incredible opportunity to see his works in person.
According to her website, Thomas "is best known for her elaborate paintings composed of rhinestones, acrylic and enamel." She has a very collage-style approach in some of her paintings, and they recall Picasso's jigsaw-like faces with cutouts and strong pattern shifts. This is evident in her paintings Portrait of Aaliyah and Portrait of Kalena, but definitely take a look at her website to see the vibrancy of each piece. She has photographs, film and video, editorials, sculptures, and more; she really is an artist of all trades.
According to Wiley's website, the artist "engages the signs and visual rhetoric of the heroic, powerful, majestic and the sublime in his representation of urban, black and brown men found throughout the world." And let me tell you—every one of his pieces is heroic, powerful, majestic, and sublime. The precision in his brushstrokes is simply immaculate; the colors jump out of the canvas and you're immediately drawn into each scene. I love Lamentation, Trickster, In Search of the Miraculous, and Saint Louis—but every single artwork is truly a masterpiece.
Xaviera Simmons
According to artsy, Simmons "explores the boundaries between fiction and reality, and public and private space, in a range of mediums that has included photography, sculpture, performance, audio, video, and installation." I honestly can't stop looking at her art; her piece Landscape (Two Women), 2007 is odd, striking, off-putting, intimate—a myriad of adjectives float through my mind as I stare at it longer and longer. The same goes for Untitled (Yellow) #2, 2014 and all of her Index pieces.
Look up these artists, see them in person (when museums and galleries are open again, of course), and do your own research on Black artists. Their art matters and needs to be in more art institutions worldwide, as well as taught in the classroom. I wish I had learned about these artists in both my undergrad and graduate programs in art history.
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