Unprecedented?, BCA Center installation view, 2020
L I LLI E HA R R IS A RTIST FOCU S
March to Now, 2020 Prismacolor pastel digitally inked and colored with PhotoShop printed on Fuji glossy paper 48" x 64" $600 Over the past 6 months, I’ve found myself attempting to illustrate more joyous things for the sake of emotional preservation. Where I would’ve normally illustrated using more morose visuals, I now find myself leaning more into hopeful expressions in order to counteract the myriad of traumatic occurrences happening day by day.
It seems like every day has housed a cataclysmic event. I wanted that expressed through the figures being in crammed, close proximity – unable to take a step back or a break away, simultaneously socially distant from each other while forced into the same lived experience.” - Lillie J. Harris
Lillie J. Harris (b. 1992, Maryland) is a cartoonist and illustrator currently residing in Montpelier, Vermont. For Unprecedented?, BCA commissioned Harris to create a new work in response to the exhibitions theme. The resulting digital drawing, March To Now, resonates with a vibrant array of primary and secondary colors. For Harris, March To Now energetically interprets the diverse ways in which children across the world have had to process the dramatic social and emotional impact brought about by the global pandemic. Harris deftly illustrates an array of emotional states in multiple vignettes – from playfulness and curiosity to nervousness and confusion. Children with arms crossed, embracing one another, or looking outward convey a chaotic, uneasy tension in which our gaze futilely seeks to rest. Harris weaves together these feelings of uncertainty and turmoil with moments of care and intimacy. Capturing a period of time defined by extraordinary events, March To Now imagines a child’s viewpoint of the pandemic and invites us to empathize with their experience.
Commentary Lillie Harris March to Now
Unprecedented. Unknown. Bothered. Sleepless. Exhausted. Exasperated. Compressed. Isolated. Lonely. Lack of community and sudden isolation. Tired of looking at screens. Virtual happy hour madness. Kids grumpy. Kids sad and sleepy. 15 hour work days. Every day. Seven days a week. Sleepless nights. And then more loss. Lynchings. Every week another one. Lynchings out of carelessness, lynchings out of hatred, lynchings because some lives simply don’t matter. MAGA mania reaching a fever pitch. Anemic white responses. White guilt. White anger. More isolation. More tears. Broken hearts further shattered. More 15 hour workdays. I hate Zoom. Racial hatred elopes with statistical numbers. Managing my anger, managing wailing children, my heart. Loss and grief and a deep yearning for a free world for us. Then, finally some ocean breeze, lobster, family time, sand in our pants and sunburnt skin. A big birthday and a small celebration. Then Black Joy, enough to foster hope, to bring back sparkles to my children’s eyes and mend some of that shattered heart. We can do this? Yes we will. Still too much work. Yet more gentleness next to my anxiety; my worry, my hopes and my fears are held by others who see me. More room for joy while breathing through grief. And more room for grief while allowing joy. When did it all start? I think it was back in March but this year feels like a decade. In the above paragraph I tried to express the whiplash from a year we’ve collectively experienced from my point of view. It felt like disjointed leaps from one task to another, trying to cover the many important needs and projects pulling me in too many directions while the world in front of our eyes unraveled. And it’s far from over yet. In a way, it might be a new beginning. Tamara Waraschinski, PhD Company Manager, JAG Productions White River Junction, VT
Biographies Lillie J. Harris (b. 1992, Maryland) is a cartoonist and illustrator originally from Prince George’s County, Maryland. Their comics feature a black and white palette reminiscent of film noir and often include elements of horror. They are currently attending the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, and their work has been featured in publications such as The New Yorker and D.C.’s Magic Bullet, and at the Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury. Harris currently resides in Montpelier, Vermont.
Dr. Tamara Waraschinski grew up in Germany and then moved to Australia, where she received her PhD in Sociology from the University of Adelaide in 2018. Dr. Waraschinski’s work experience in aged care, as a palliative care volunteer, as well as her personal background, has informed her life-long curiosity of how we construct our social world. A social theorist and death scholar, she is particularly interested in capitalism’s effects on perceptions of mortality. Dr. Waraschinski is the Co-Founder and Director of The Collective of Radical Death Studies, an international professional organization that produces and disseminates scholarship by and about death scholars, students, death practitioners of color and from marginalized communities. She is also the Company Manager of JAG Productions, a non-profit community theater organization in White River Junction, Vermont, which produces classic and contemporary African American productions.
Participating Artists Jeremy Ayers, Becci Davis, Lillie Harris, Akiko Jackson, Brielle Rovito, EveNSteve (Eve and Steve Schaub), Dan Siegel, and Sarah Camille Wilson Community Contributors Tyeastia Green, Elizabeth Goldstein, Carmen Jackson, Milton Rosa-Ortiz, and Tamara Waraschinski
Unprecedented? is presented as part of 2020 Vision: Reflecting on a World-Changing Year, a statewide exhibition initiative of the Vermont Curators Group.
Burlington City Arts is supported by the New England Foundation for the Arts through the New England Arts Resilience Fund, part of the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund, an initiative of the U.S. Regional Arts Organizations and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with major funding from the federal CARES Act from the National Endowment for the Arts.
2020 EXHIBITION YEAR PRESENTED BY
BCA Exhibitions are funded in part by a grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Vermont Arts Council.
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