Your #Panel61 Highlights: Myth of Return

Posted on December 21, 2016 by Experiment Station

In the final, 60th panel of The Migration Series, Jacob Lawrence leaves us with the words “And the migrants keep coming.” The story of migration is ongoing; what would the 61st panel look like today? Featured below are some thoughtful responses to this question by local artists. Submit your #Panel61 on our recently launched Jacob Lawrence website.

Panel 61 submission: Maria-Theresa Fernandes

Maria-Theresa Fernandes
(Above) “This large installation is comprised of 28 panels and shows the various communities that came to the UK, the influence of their culture on the local community, and the richness of what they bringm i.e. food, life, etc.”

(Below) “This work relates to migration and shows the various communities waiting in the queue to be accepted into the country; in this instance, Britain. The work is digitally photographed and manipulated with stitch and collage.”

Panel 61 submission: Maria-Theresa Fernandes

Panel 61 submission: Brian Whelan, “Myth of Return”

Brian Whelan
(Above) “In my painting Myth of Return, the passengers set out with nothing but a good wind in the sails, a single oar, and a light to steer by. All trust is put into the will of God and the new world to come. They carry little more than their songs, poems, a hope, and a prayer.”

(Below) “As a son of immigrants, I am no stranger to a new culture. Spending time in the US with my American wife has given me another address but the drive of my work remains the same: a search for a spiritual and metaphorical home, which finds some consolation and expression in the subjects I choose to paint. These themes are often narratives drawn from life’s comic tragedies, on both secular and religious planes.”

Panel 61 submission: Brian Whelan

Your #Panel61: Shotgun as Artistic Tool

Posted on December 13, 2016 by Experiment Station

Panel 61 submission: Mahnaz Weldy, “Humanity in Pain”

Mahnaz Weldy
In this piece, Humanity in Pain, I tried to show that we all are connected to one another, and if we have any conscious, then suffering of others should pain us all. I aimed to not only paint the pain and suffering, but also the human resilience and strength to survive the unimaginable. My work is a combination of acrylic, collage and chalk on canvas.

jenny-balisle_america-red-white-and-blue

Panel 61 submission: Jenny E. Balisle, “America Red, White and Blue.” 39 x 108 in. Colorplan paper and a Mossberg 500 shotgun

Jenny E. Balisle
The America series investigates diverse cultures and relationships between man-made and natural environments. Fascinated by flight or disorientation, I merge together disparate experiences to create new narratives. Colorplan sheets of cover stock sized 25 x 38 inches were brought to a gun range. Using a Mossberg 500 shotgun as a vehicle of mark making, paper was placed on a target seven yards away. The artwork records how patterns of power and inequality can be spread through distance and speed. It re-purposes a weapon into artistic commentary by altering function to explore identity, ideology, and equality. The paper represents life’s fragility and the pellet pattern explores America’s gun culture and military-industrial complex. The goal is to engage conversation on what it means to be American as a citizen and through a global context. The artwork reclaims social justice and questions what is normal. The orientation of the paper has been turned to face the viewer, confronting and asking by what means and price do we secure freedom for all at home and abroad.

Your #Panel61

Posted on October 20, 2016 by Experiment Station

Judy Williams, Multitude Long Journey, 2016. 20 x 20 x 1.5, oil on canvas

Judy Williams
“My artistic production is my attempt to pay homage to the vast distribution of humanity seeking asylum and refuge from the abominations of war. Across the world a multitude of disparate peoples individuated by each one’s personal story are on the move, migrating, yearning to alter their path of destiny, creating a new geography. My daily practice of painting further attempts to represent those who now flee their homes in pursuit of new places of hope, peace, and love.”

simmons-hodges-antionette_the-protesters

Antionette Simmons Hodges, The Protesters. Acrylic, 20 x 16 in.

Antionette Simmons Hodges
“Surely, Lawrence would continue with themes related to social issues of life in the cities. To follow his themes of the conditions in the cities, I painted The Protesters, using Lawrence’s simple color palette and stylized figures. The painting is of a demonstration for human rights, which could have taken place in the sixties for racial equality, or today showing unity for a common cause pertaining to immigration or protesting the many shootings of unarmed African Americans.”

simmons-hodges-antionette_jo-joe-and-billy

Antionette Simmons Hodges, Jo Joe & Billy (set). Acrylic, 24 x 12 in.

Antionette Simmons Hodges
“This could be any southern African American couple from the past, much like my parents. I never thought of my folks as part of the Great Migration, but they were! Wiley and Annie wanted to start a new life together, free from the limits of segregation. Mom and Dad came from large families, grew up farming the land in Wetumpka, Alabama. They decided in 1940, before I was born, to leave Alabama’s cotton fields, as did many of my aunts and uncles. My parents settled in Buffalo, NY, while other family members’ destinations became Cleveland and Detroit. All were looking for a better way of life for their families, which they found working in the steel mills and car factories.”

mlowrymosley-migration61-true-north-no-boundaries

Melissa Lowry Mosley, True North No Boundaries

Melissa Lowry Mosley
“In keeping with Lawrence’s migration theme of internal personal shift and external societal movement, my artwork commemorates the first African American NASA astronaut (Guion “Guy” Bluford, August 30, 1983) in space, and therein remembers the thirteen African American men and women who would follow him into space—two of whom were killed in space shuttle disasters (including the second African American man in space), the two who would retire having never flown in space, the very first named African American Astronaut trainee who would die in an aircraft accident, and those waiting still! The watercolor bears the caption: Continuing to move North: True North. No boundaries. Slipping our surly bonds of ‘space’ and claiming our place among the stars.”