Exhibition Response

 

    During my visit to the exhibition BURN: Origins and Resistance, I came across two pieces of artwork that stood out to me. The exhibition was based on women of color and their true beauty. It speaks about the power of women of color and how tough they are. The exhibition’s description speaks nothing but good about these women, and the art easily portrays it as well. This easily ties to the “Black Lives Matter” movement. According to Harvard Gazette, in an article named Background of Black Lives Matter, it reads,” The movement was born in 2013 after a Florida jury acquitted George Zimmerman of second-degree murder in the shooting death of African-American teenager Trayvon Martin.” The exhibition was beautiful, but there were two pieces that really caught my eye. The pieces of art work stood out to me as I glanced around the room and compared them to all of the other pieces of art.. At that very moment I knew that I was going to write my response about them.  The names of the pieces are called ,”Red Sisters Reflecting,” and “Orange leaves sister.” Both of these artworks were produced in the year of 2020.

    These pieces really stood out to me because of the color and details of it. As I quickly glanced around the exhibition I could notice quickly that these two pieces were so colorful compared to the others. My favorite time of the year is autumn, and these two pieces had the perfect blend and color to autumn. When I saw them, all I could rethink about was the breeze and colors of autumn. I could see the leaves falling from the tree branches. Red Sisters Reflecting is my favorite one between the two. The colors of this piece really satisfied my eyes. The red color on this piece is so appealing to me. It could simply be the fact that Red is my favorite color, but the Orange leaves from Orange Leaves Sister are beautiful as well. In both pieces, one can quickly see the shape of a woman in the background. It is like an outline of the women, with the background of tree branches and leaves. The Red Sister seems to have all tree branches in her background, while the Orange Sister has the Orange leaves that fill her outline. 

Although the pieces of artwork are appealing to the eye, the pieces also hold meaning for the exhibition. We must not forget that the whole exhibition is based on women of color. In the same article spoken of above, it states,” In shedding light on African-American life from the beginning of slavery to the anti-lynching crusade to the Civil Rights Movement, the speakers shared their hope that history can provide clues for Black Lives Matter to achieve its stated goal of changing a “world where black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise.” This quote explains how the blakc lives matter movement is after a goal where black people are not systematically and targeted for wrong doings. In these two pieces of artworks, it portrays the opposite of this statement. It expresses how beautiful black women are. One can look at the pieces of artwork and ask themselves,” how could one possibly know that they are black women?” This was a question I asked myself in order to prove that these women were of color. It clicked into my head that it was a simple answer to explain to someone that the woman outlined in these pieces were black. It was through the hair! 

Looking at the pieces, one could notice the types of hairstyles the women had. That's when I made the correlation between the women of color and beauty. It finally made sense after trying my best to find the connection with the outline of a black woman, and a beautiful background. After reading the exhibition description one more time, I knew that the description spoke highly of African American women.​​The artwork was of an African American woman, with a beautiful background that filled her outline as well! In my eyes, the pieces were trying to portray how beautiful black women are.

I believe this artwork can be seen as a work of activism, but in my humble opinion I believe they are pieces which remind people that African American women are beautiful. These pieces do not really push a very strong message compared to other types of artworks. I believe these pieces push a more healthy and positive message. I feel this way because one can put anyone on this outline and also portray the beauty of someone as well. In the beginning, I only chose these pieces because they were appealing to my eye. As I read more and looked at these pieces, I made a deeper connection with them. I then admired the pieces even more!