BLACK MADONNA
MARK STEVEN GREENFIELD
WILLIAM TURNER GALLERY
BLACK MADONNA MARK STEVEN GREENFIELD “For the faithful, the Black Madonnas represent the basis of theological mystery from which all possibility emanates. For the clergy, they provide cover for some unexplained religious dogma. For me, they held all the intrigue of confronting a blank canvas.” — Mark Steven Greenfield
William Turner Gallery is pleased to present, Black Madonna, an exhibition of new and recent work by Mark Steven Greenfield. The exhibition explores aspects of the African American experience in American culture, often critiquing and offering unique perspectives on a society still grappling with the consequences of slavery and racial injustice. As Greenfield has stated, “My work incorporates irony, humor, tragedy, pathos, history, and a myriad of other tools, to challenge long-held notions of race in a different way.” The exhibition highlights a striking new series of 17 Black Madonna paintings, which re-imagine these unique religious icons, that began appearing in the 13th and 14th centuries in churches throughout Medieval Europe. The origin and purpose of the Black Madonnas in religious iconography are somewhat of a mystery and the subject of much scholarly debate, which inspired Greenfield to infuse them with his own contemporary meaning and perspective. Greenfield’s versions are rendered in the Byzantine style of their art historical predecessors, with the black Virgin Mother
and Baby Jesus as the central focus within circular compositions, or tondos. These tondos float amongst abstract discs, set within fields of lustrous, gold leaf. The Madonnas predominate before a variety of backgrounds, which were traditionally innocuous. Greenfield, however, presents these backdrops as various revenge fantasies, where white supremacists are cast in the role of victims, suffering the fates they often inflicted. The effect is striking, the meaning unexpected. For Greenfield, a dedicated meditator, the discs symbolize the mantras one repeats during meditation, and often appear in his work. The Black Madonnas, seated innocently before the violence playing out behind, are the thoughts which come unbidden during meditation between mantras - to be acknowledged, then released. The Madonnas play their traditional role, conveying notions of maternal love, seemingly oblivious to these various scenes of retribution, where the rope is decidedly on the other neck. Yet these role reversals are less about revenge fantasies and more about creating contexts for shifts in perspective - for empathy.
Tinged with humor, titles like, Mississippi Cookout, and Burnin’ Down the House, invite us to imagine an alternate reality, so that we might better understand the brutal realities of the past as we navigate our way forward. As Greenfield states, “Fear of the “other” often devolves into mindless hatred. Yet, sometimes the path to empathy lies in the visualization of one’s physical victimization—particularly when paired with a symbol that has come to be associated with universal love.” He adds, “The revenge fantasy exists in the darker regions of the subconscious in response to centuries of injustice. It is subdued by the higher aspiration that leads toward a more saintly life. As during the Renaissance, when Black Madonnas first gained prominence, they serve as metaphors for a spectrum of new beginnings.”
Burnin’ Down the House, 2018, Gold Leaf and Acrylic on Wood Panel, 24” X 18” Below: The Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints, Italo-Byzantine School, early 14th c.
Collateral, 2020, Gold Leaf and Acrylic on Wood Panel, 30” X 56”
Throughout his career, Greenfield’s work has dealt with elucidating the African American experience examining stereotypes and other acts of oppression, often by illuminating the most oppressive of acts - those of omission. Pieces like Escrava Anastacia, and Zong, are among a number of new works in the exhibition that present us with powerful images of figures and events neglected by history. Greenfield’s images of a muzzled Anastacia, a legendary South American slave, known for her exceptional beauty and miraculous powers of healing, and the ill-fated souls cast to oblivion from the
slave ship Zong, their stories.
compel
us to learn
This exhibition was a year and a half in the planning, yet feels uncannily destined for this moment. It opens at a time of unprecedented upheaval, where a global pandemic and outrage over continuing racial inequality, have challenged our institutions, and our perceptions of them, to the core. With Black Madonna, Mark Steven Greenfield brings an important and timely perspective to the discussion. -William Turner, 2020
“Fear of the “other” often devolves into mindless hatred. Yet sometimes the path to empathy lies in the visualization of one’s physical victimization—particularly when paired with a symbol that has come to be associated with universal love.” — Mark Steven Greenfield
Collateral, 2020, Gold Leaf and Acrylic on Wood Panel, 30” X 56”
Left: Detail (Center Panel) Above: Detail (Right Panel) Collateral 2020, Gold Leaf and Acrylic on Wood Panel 30” X 56”
THE BLACK MADONNA SERIES For
centuries the origins of the Black Madonna have been shrouded in mystery and speculation. Her image began to appear throughout Medieval Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries, and became associated with miracles, which in turn attracted waves of pilgrims to the largely Catholic and Orthodox churches where the images were displayed, most often in the form of statuary . Painted in the Byzantine style, the Black Madonna icons are somewhat formulaic, usually depicting the Virgin Mary seated holding the infant Jesus, but they differ from typical icons, in the coloration of the Virgin’s skin. It was long held that the Madonnas had simply blackened as a result of years of exposure to smoke and soot from church candles. Over time this explanation was dismissed in favor of the proposition that they were intentionally painted black. That theory gained traction with the spread of Christianity, when an alternative explanation was circulated: The images had been “colorized” in order to appear more appealing to recently converted indigenous populations in Africa, Asia and South America. In the absence of a definitive history, the Black Madonnas’ origin and purpose remain elusive. It is this very enigma that most resonates with me: They remain mysterious symbols from the past, perhaps awaiting our own interpretations of meaning. For the faithful, the Black Madonnas represent the basis of theological mystery
Black Madonna Of Vilnius, Vilnius, Lithuania, 1630
from which all possibility emanates. For the clergy, they provide cover for some unexplained religious dogma. For me, they held all the intrigue of confronting a blank canvas. Black, a neutral that often signifies the fertility of the earth, paired with the mother figure from which all life springs, created a powerful archetype that incorporated both feminine and masculine energies. It casts God as not only the father, but as Goddess mother too, adopting some basic principles of gender diversity. Historically, the church was often loath to acknowledge the genesis of these images without drawing attention to their origins in the ancient Egyptian legend of Osiris and Horus and the suggestion of a link to Black Africans.
My connection with the Madonna goes back to my early religious upbringing. In Catholic school we were taught to pray to the Virgin Mary to intercede on behalf of humankind, in order to solve some problem, lift some burden, or effect a cure. Without exception, the Virgin Mary of my youth was White. In my work I’ve both harkened to the traditional compositions echoing masters of the European Madonna such as DaVinci, Bellini, and Raphael and reinterpreted them by recasting the Madonna as an African American superheroine yet still isolating her in an icon’s customary field of gold and focusing deeply on her expressions and countenance.
Madonna and Child with a Pomegranate, 1490, Leonardo da Vinci
My reinterpretation of the Madonna also incorporates the circular and oval designs that have become signature elements in my work and are akin to automatic writing. They represent my characterization of mantras used in Eastern meditative practices, and in these works suggest similarities between this practice and the recitation of the rosary, itself something of a mantra. It is my hope that these Black Madonnas, like the icons so valued by the church, will serve as both witnesses and teachers. They are intended to engage and subvert our expectations, reversing traditional roles. They provide a contrast between the unconditional love of mother and child— the dominant feature, and a backdrop of characters we’ve come to associate with White supremacy, cast in the role of victims. The suggested revenge fantasy exists in the darker regions of the subconscious in response to centuries of racial injustice. It is subdued by the higher aspiration that leads toward a saintly life. The effect is intended to be both disturbing and edifying. Fear of the “other” often devolves into mindless hatred, yet sometimes the path to empathy lies in the visualization of one’s physical victimization—particularly when paired with a symbol that has come to be associated with universal love. As during the Renaissance, when Black Madonnas first gained prominence, they serve as metaphors for a multitude of new beginnings.
-Mark Steven Greenfield
Infelix Lignum (Unfortunate Wood), 2019, Gold Leaf and Acrylic on Wood Panel, 24” X 18”
Kid Dyno-mite, 2019, Gold Leaf and Acrylic on Wood Panel, 24” X 18”
Mississippi Cookout, 2018, Gold Leaf and Acrylic on Wood Panel, 24” X 18”
Consequences, 2018, Gold Leaf and Acrylic on Wood Panel, 24” X 18”
Burnin’ Down The House, 2018, Gold Leaf and Acrylic on Wood Panel, 24” X 18”
Gort’s Directive, 2019, Gold Leaf and Acrylic on Wood Panel, 24” X 18”
Distress, 2019, Gold Leaf and Acrylic on Wood Panel, 24” X 18”
NIGRA SUM Justin Randolph Thompson is a new media artist, cultural facilitator and educator born in Peekskill, NY in ’79. Living between Italy and the US since 1999, Thompson is CoFounder and Director of Black History Month Florence, a multi-faceted exploration of African and African Diasporic cultures in the context of Italy founded in 2016.
The Black Madonna Series by Mark Steven Greenfield encourages us to reflect upon the spiritual dimension of Blackness, its association with darkness and the socio-historical facets of the veneration of Black representations of Mary. The works are a meditative portal into the abyss of a canonical understanding of art history, which has attempted to swallow all challenges to its symbolism, iconography, neutrality and scholarly policing. Ingestion however is not digestion and perhaps the centuries of being caught in pre-digestive organs are cause for us to consider the ways in which simple presence and basic existence, can be seen as a challenge to this carefully constructed structure. The reflections that emerge from this series of paintings are rooted in physics, chemistry and the metaphysical breadth of our socio-spiritual lives engaging alchemy, but also, and perhaps more importantly, an intercession born in the bible as it was employed in US based slavery, as a byproduct of European trade and as a precursor to settler colonialism in North America. The capacity of our eyes to adjust to an unlit room is known as dark adaptation and corresponds to the adjustment of the retina of the eye to its surroundings before revealing the detail and content of the space. This scientific phenomenon
of the rods and cones of our eyes, locked in its reason policed authority, is barely cognizant of the resistance that some eyes perform as a socio-spiritual response to darkness and its metasacred association with Blackness. It is as if seeing the form, details and content disrupt the room itself and the capacity for worship. Art history has played an insurmountable role in trapping the figure of Mary within a lavishly adorned crystal reliquary of Whiteness. If ever
Black Madonna, Montserrat Monastery, Barcelona, Spain
anyone questions art’s capacity to shape our understandings and perceptions of the physical and celestial world, this is a prime example of the prowess of canons of art and their gatekeeping. Oft emboldened through an art historical analysis incapable of recognizing the positionality of its gatekeepers, and too frequently keen on discarding and discrediting new keys adept for opening old and precarious locks, it is not by accident that our eyes have difficulty in adjusting. With art providing much of our perceptual knowledge around historical people and places, and with perception itself governed by contextual positionality, we can easily identify the fallacy that structurally renders the mind’s eye’s reception partial. In adjusting to poorly lit environments the cones of our eyes are quicker in their alteration and response, rapidly acknowledging the obvious, but lacking clarity and depth. It is the rods that take far longer in their adjustment, performing, however, at lower rates of illumination, proving vital in order to see beyond the blinding light cast by the flashlights of the gatekeepers. Once our eyes and mind’s have adjusted, all that we have achieved is the acknowledgement of what could be deemed obvious, basic or minimal… presence…existence. One of the most frequently sighted attacks on Black Madonna’s and their “authenticity” is grounded in the biochemical capacity of certain pigments and materials to tarnish and blacken over time through exposure to light or
to candle soot. Rather than seeking to debunk or reject this important analysis, as applied to a broad range of images, frequently void of any chemical analysis, perhaps it is more telling to entertain it. Entertaining reflections designed to bluntly cut off exploration requires a multifaceted approach not generated as rebuttal, but engaged in the speculative labor of finding meaning in every fold while taking note of how incomplete all tellings of history actually are. Let’s begin with the notion of oxidation or, the chemical reaction of substances to oxygen. In a historical moment riddled with respiratory difficulty as a physical component of a global health crisis and as a metaphoric component of a social justice crisis, it is hard not to reflect here upon the role of the respiratory system, to breathe in oxygen and release carbon dioxide. Breathing is reliant on oxygen and lung capacity. Art historically Black Madonna’s have been granted a limited lung capacity. Mary, as a figure controlled by the church in order to avoid excessive veneration, is a figure already spiritually tethered to assisted breathing or, breathing designed to reduce the labor of oxygen intake through a mechanically produced structure of control and support. In the Black Madonna series ambiguity is coupled with the illustrative, providing us with a space for conversation where the elephant in the room is spot lit and on stage. The layering of congruous and conflicting imagery nourishes that very ambiguity, that space to breath… oxygen.
For several Black Madonna’s across the globe there is a presumption that they were actually White and that, through their veneration they became black in color. What does it mean for an object to become Black through excessive worship and to have that very Blackness, and its association with fertility, be that which produces even more veneration resulting in even more Blackness? How can a sustained exposure to oxygen and to candle light become transformative in regards to the socio-spiritual power of an object of devotion? Candles function by burning wax, which is the fuel, assisted by the wick, which is the vehicle. The flame’s consumption of oxygen produces carbon dioxide, much like our breathing, along with incompletely burned portions of carbon that become soot.
imagining beyond the blaring trappings of meticulously rendered white flesh tones which have worked to establish a visual art standard and are often the very foundation of painterly instruction. There are, however, those of us for whom Blackness and divinity, Blackness and beauty, Blackness and breathing are not at all a task to conjure. What happens then when an artist engages directly in the reversal of the whitening of the figure of Mary? What emerges as her white versions are rendered with black pigments? Does this gesture carry with it a connection to a tradition of blackface that can be contextualized in US popular culture? Each of these dimensions incites our imaginings of the mutability of symbols and the aptitude for even longstanding assumptions to be challenged.
Exposure and worship are the fuel and vehicle of these objects. The more exposure to worship, the more oxygen is consumed and the Blacker the symbol of our reverence. All of this however does not account for the vast majority of Black Madonna’s, which are, despite the policing and negation, unapologetically and distinctly Black beyond speculation. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the rebuttal to the legitimacy of Black Madonna’s is the incapacity to imagine Black divinity. Despite the presence in Ethiopia of Christianity dating back as far as it’s legalization in ancient Rome and despite the fact that across the Early Christian kingdoms of Kongo, like those of Ethiopia, the holy family and Blackness are quite naturally synonymous. Why then are these figures seemingly so troubling? There is often an inability of Black Madonna of Czestochowa artist: unknown, 14th Century 122 X 82 centimeters
Black Madonna, Santuario di Tindari, Sicily, Italy
Blackatcha, a now 20 year-old body of work that encompasses images of blackface minstrelsy reconfigured as eye examination charts, provides an earlier reflection in Greenfield’s work on optics and codified Blackness. The works posit the results of “passing” the examination as the acknowledgement of a series of questions, exclamations and queries directed at the audience, seemingly coming directly from the mouths of the figures in the images. Blackface minstrelsy needs to be understood as one of the earliest forms of popular culture in the United States. Designed with stereotypes as entertainment in mind, the buffoonery of White perspectives on Black people was played out with elaborations into numerous fields of life, from the school to the church. The Black church and Black political representation were of particular interest in this theatrical
realm of White performativity as they represented sites of Black respectability, the dismantling of which was central to the objectives of this “art”. In a sense, the transformation of Black spaces of worship from traditions of restraint and control in the hands of slavers, where repenting and punishment were delivered as bastions of the spiritual realm, into a site of celebration and aspirational release was perhaps, through minstrelsy, as important to ridicule and suppress as notions of respectability. If Mary represents a figure “full of grace” and a recipient of incessant and meditative prayers repeated as forms of repentance, then her evocation as the spiritual figure that sheds tears, that expresses profound emotionality, extends her humanity into a realm where grief and sorrow are accompanied by vocal and physical liberation.
Our Lady Of Anjony, France, 17th Century
Most of the objects identified as Black Madonnas are icons or statuary that are frequently used, physically, in manifestations of public celebration, habitually leaving the church itself in processions designed to animate these works of art and to render evident their functionality. Displacement, or the transportation of these objects from one site to another, becomes a form of remembrance reliant on a community engaged in physically accompanying the works into public space. Once transported, forms of exaltation and celebration not permitted inside the hallowed walls of the church harken back to earlier forms of devotion almost entirely removed from the gestures and rituals of houses of worship. Art historically, the function of most religiously themed art is broadly recognized as contributing to a communally oriented and collectively understood representation of lessons and
visual cues that accompany holy texts. The removal of many of these works from churches and their subsequent placement in museum spaces has inevitably blurred their capacity to function in the way that they were intended, while also shifting the capacity of other non-religiously themed works among which they are placed to become objects of veneration. Within the context of Italy images of Mary are as present on street corners or tucked away into niches in alleys as they are in churches. This alteration of sites of worship is in keeping with the lack of division between life and prayer and indeed the sites of these works are frequently accompanied by objects of piety varying from mortared placard marked PGR (Per grazia ricevuta/For grace received), to layers of rosaries that accumulate with each passing year. Within museum collections, the detachment from prayer combined with the institutional intentions to render equal the importance of the artist and the message of the work, allow for the Whiteness canonically inscribed into these objects to be tethered to a non-function or perhaps more accurately a dysfunction that sets the standard for work that can be embraced as inheritors of the keys to the gate (i.e. art historical canonization). These notions govern what is frequently policed as ideological appropriateness. Perhaps it is appropriate then, and insightful for us to reflect upon canonization and its history, as there are indeed parallels between that carried out by the church and that reproduced in the history of art. Canonization in the church is about the declaration of a person as worthy of a public cult or authorizing the faithful to venerate someone. In the early history of sanctification one of the tasks
of the church was to determine and declare whether a death could be considered martyrdom. In the first half millennium AD this role was taken on as a form of canonization. The authorization was oft accompanied by the development of reliquaries from the remains of those deemed worthy of the list. It is not till the more than a thousand years later that this term begins a more frequent and consistent use in relation to the history of art. The word canon itself deriving from a Greek term for measuring stick provides insight to the idea of measuring one thing against another as a form of access or, perhaps more appropriately, of gatekeeping or at least of housekeeping. What then does it mean to establish the measurements, prerequisites and parameters for what can receive praise? What does it mean to institute and canonize cultural “norms” and in what ways can the legitimacy and authority granted to these dimensions be called into question?
With several of the more famous Black Madonnas migrating to their current locations and the resulting development of shrines to encase them and to host the pilgrims that traverse the globe to meditate before them, perhaps it is the migration of values, of function that truly matter and an affirmation of the mutability of meaning that is greatly needed. Having a clear picture of the gatekeepers is as important as understanding the limited dimensions of the gate and its incapacity to hold back that which elusively evades the traps and boxes that have been designed to contain it, but which are unaware of the socio-spiritual scale of Black speculative aspirations. The Black Madonna of Tindari in Sicily bears the words from the Song of Songs “Nigra Sum Sed Formosa” (I am Black but Beautiful). The word sed in the context of this phrase is an early reference to Black exceptionalism and speaks worlds to us about imagination and control as bound up in a single conjunction. To read literally means to guess. It is a contextually rooted form of rapid choices. Context thus is everything, but perhaps we need not ask permission before we decide upon our own definitions.
-Justin Randolph Thompson
Black Madonna of Chartres Cathedral Chartres, France, 1508
Chamber Made, 2019, Gold Leaf and Acrylic on Wood Panel, 24” X 18”
The French Solution, 2019, Gold Leaf and Acrylic on Wood Panel, 24” X 18”
Mercy Deferred, 2019, Gold Leaf and Acrylic on Wood Panel, 24” X 18”
Toppling, 2020, Gold Leaf and Acrylic on Wood Panel , 24” X 18”
What’s That Funky Smell?, 2019, Gold Leaf and Acrylic on Wood Panel, 24” X 18”
Chumming, 2019, Gold Leaf and Acrylic on Wood Panel, 24” X 18”
Bad Apples, 2019, Gold Leaf and Acrylic on Wood Panel, 24” X 18”
Charlie Cha Cha, 2019, Gold Leaf and Acrylic on Wood Panel, 24” X 18”
Mistaken Identity, 2019, Gold Leaf and Acrylic on Wood Panel, 24” X 18”
Wheel About, 2019, Gold Leaf and Acrylic on Wood Panel, 24” X 18”
Truce, Gold Leaf Tree and Acrylic Javier2020, Peláez, Broken Suite on Wood Panel, 30” X 56”
Left: Detail (Center Panel) Above: Detail (Left Panel) Truce, 2020 Gold Leaf and Acrylic on Wood Panel 30” X 56”
St. Moses the Black, aka Abba Moses the Robber 2020, Gold Leaf and Acrylic on Wood Panel 36” X 24”
SAINT MOSES THE BLACK
Saint
Moses the Black, also known as Abba the Robber, was born in Ethiopia around 330 A.D. He worked as a servant to a government official in Egypt until he was dismissed on suspicion of theft and murder. With few options open to him, he became the leader of a gang of bandits who terrorized parts of the Nile Valley. On one occasion a foiled robbery attempt forced him to take refuge among a group of monks in the desert near Alexandria. He was converted to the monastic life, but had difficulty giving up his old ways. He would fight with anyone he deemed to be a threat to either him or his fellow brothers and it is reported that he overpowered a group that had come to rob the monastery and hauled them before the abbot for his disposition. The other monks took the thieves in and converted them as well. Moses came to fully adopt the contemplative life and vowed to remain nonviolent. In 405 A.D. it was learned that a group of Berbers were planning an attack on the monastery. The brothers were preparing to defend themselves, but Moses forbade it, instructing them to retreat rather than taking up weapons. His feeling was as a former gangster it was appropriate that he die a violent death citing “All that take the sword, will perish by the sword”. He and seven others were martyred by the Berbers on July 1st.
Detail: St. Moses the Black, aka Abba Moses the Robber 2020, Gold Leaf and Acrylic on Wood Panel 36” X 24”
ESCRAVA ANASTACIA A
great deal of mystery surrounds Anastacia’s origins. Some claim she was born of royal lineage in Africa, while others suggest she was born in Brazil. All accounts agree that she was a slave of exceptional beauty with arresting blue eyes. She was purported to have possessed remarkable healing abilities and a number of miracles are attributed to her. She was very cruelly treated by her masters and was made to wear a muzzle-like facemask and heavy iron collar. The reasons for this punishment vary from trying to incite other slaves escape, to the claim that she resisted rape by her master, to a mistress jealous of her beauty. After a prolonged period of suffering she died of tetanus brought on by the slave collar. It is claimed that she healed the son of the master and mistress and forgave them as she died. There have been repeated attempts to have her canonized as a saint, but the Catholic Church refuses to acknowledge her existence, and has had her image removed from all church properties in Brazil. Nonetheless Anastacia has many devoted followers among the poor and disenfranchised, and shrines to her can be found throughout the country.
Escrava Anastacia 2020, Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood 16” x 16”
SAARTJIE BAARTMAN Saartjie Baartman also known as Sarah Baartman, Black Venus and the Hottentot Princess, was born in 1789 in the eastern part of Cape Colony South Africa. She was a member of the Khoikhoi tribe who, due to their large buttocks were exhibited in freak shows in 19th century Europe. Her status as a tribe member prevented her from being sold as a slave in South Africa. In 1810 she accompanied her employer to England where he presented her on stage as an oddity under the most humiliating circumstances. On a trip to France she was sold to an animal trainer who forced her to amuse onlookers at the Palais Royal where she came to attention of a professor of comparative anatomy at the Museum of Natural History who was looking for the missing link between animals and humans. She became an alcoholic, lived in poverty in Paris, eventually resorting to prostitution to survive. After her death from an undetermined inflammatory disease in 1815, she was dissected and her brain, skeleton, genitalia and a plaster cast of her body were put on display at the Museum of Man in Paris. In 2002 her remains were returned to South Africa where she was buried on that country’s National Women’s Day.
Saartjie Baartman 2020, Gold Leaf and Acrylic on Wood Panel 24” X 24”
TOUSSAINT L’OVERTURE Francois Dominique Toussaint L’Overture was the leader of the Haitian Revolution arguably the only successful slave revolt in history. He helped transform a slave insurgency movement in 1791 into a revolution in one of France’s most prosperous colonies and is known as the “Father of Haiti”. Born in the mid 1740’s and rising through the ranks of the military, he fought for the Spanish against the French, then for the French against Spain and Great Britain, ultimately fighting for the sovereignty of Saint Domingue (Haiti). Toussaint was betrayed in a parley with the French in 1802, arrested and deported to France. He was held in a cell without a roof and deprived of food and water where he died in 1803. After news of his death reached the island, the Haitian revolution entered its most violent phase. Under his lieutenant Jean-Jacques Dessalines, there were mass killings of the French. There was considerable fear that the success of the Haitian revolution would incite slaves in the United States and other parts of the Western Hemisphere to revolt. It is speculated that the Haitian economy was intentionally impeded as a form of punishment. It remains one of the poorest countries in the world.
Toussaint 2020, Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel 16” X 16”
SUSAN MABRY Susan
Mabry was born around 1850 in Virginia and known for her prodigious cotton picking. It was common in the antebellum south for female slaves to do much of the same laborious fieldwork as their male counterparts. Slaves were driven to produce and would generally be free from punishment if they could pick 150 to 200 pounds of cotton a day. “Cotton down Southhampton way was small an’ scrummy an’ stick to de plant like green tree bark. I was a good worker myself. I could pick four or five hundred pounds of cotton a day. I could most times make ‘bout 200 pounds. We had a good time jurin’ cotton pickin’ time. Got to have good pickers for “Ginny [Virginia] cotton, …. but dey warn’t many could outpick me.” Susan Mabry - Undated interview, Negro In Virginia
Susan Mabry 2020, Gold Leaf and Acrylic on Wood Panel 16” X 16”
The Slave Ship (1840) J. M. W. Turner’s representation of the mass killing of enslaved people, inspired by the Zong killings.
ZONG, 2019, Ink and Acrylic on Duralar, 36”x70”
ZONG On
November 29, 1781 the crew of the slave ship Zong threw more than 130 slaves overboard because they had not stored enough food and water to sustain the “cargo” during the middle passage. Upon landing in Jamaica, they tried to file an insurance claim for the loss which was denied. The resulting 1783 court case, Gregson vs. Gilbert, held that under some circumstances the deliberate killing of slaves was legal. New evidence was introduced that found that the captain and crew were at fault due to a navigational error which prolonged the voyage. The Zong Massacre received increased attention on the testimony of a freed slave, Olaudah Equiano, giving rise to the abolitionist movement of the 18th century, and the end of British participation in the African Slave trade in 1807. The painting “The Slave Ship” 1840, by J.M.W. Turner was inspired by the event.
CC Two, 2017, Ink on Duralar, 28” X 71”
CC Three, 2019, Ink and acylic Duralar, 36” X 71”
Hive Mantra, 2017, Ink on Duralar, 40” X 73”
MARK STEVEN GREENFIELD
M
ark Steven Greenfield is a native Angelino, and son of a Tuskegee Airman, which led to spending the first part of his life abroad, living on military bases from Taiwan to Germany, until returning to LA at the age of ten. In high school Greenfield studied with revered Los Angeles artist, John T Riddle. Riddle quickly noted Greenfield’s talent, but saw that he was vulnerable to the influences and dangers confronting black youth at the time. Riddle remarked, “You could be a pretty good artist....if you live that long.” This got Greenfield’s attention and set him on the path that would define the course of his life. Greenfield went on to study with Charles White, at Otis Art Institute, and received his Bachelor’s degree in Art Education in 1973 from California State University, Long Beach and a Masters of Fine Arts degree in painting and drawing from California State University Los Angeles in 1987. Greenfield’s work has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States most notably with a comprehensive survey exhibition at the California African America’ the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia. Internationally, he has exhibited at the Chiang Mai Art Museum in Thailand; at Art 1307 in Naples, Italy; the Blue Roof Museum in Chengdu, China; 1333 Arts, Tokyo, Japan; and the Gang Dong Art Center in Seoul, South Korea.
Crop Circle, 2016, Ink on Duralar, 40” X 71”
Greenfield is a recipient of the L.A. Artcore Crystal Award (2006) Los Angeles Artist Laboratory Fellowship Grant (2011), the City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship (COLA 2012), The California Community Foundation Artist Fellowship (2012), the Instituto Sacatar Artist Residency Fellowship in Salvador, Brazil (2013) and the McColl Center for Art + Innovation Residency in Charlotte, North Carolina (2016). He was a visiting professor at the California Institute of the Arts in 2013 and California State University Los Angeles in 2016. From 1993-2011, Greenfield worked for the
Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs as director of the Watts Towers Arts Center, and later as director of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Barnsdall Park. He has served on the boards of the Downtown Artists Development Association, the Armory Center for the Arts, the Black Creative Professionals Association, the Watts Village Theatre Company and was past president of the Los Angeles Art Association/Gallery 825. He currently teaches drawing and design at Los Angeles City College, and serves on the board of Side Street Projects.
Mark Steven Greenfield Born:
1951
Los Angeles, California
Education:
1987 1973
M.F.A. (Painting and Drawing) CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY AT LOS ANGELES B.A. Art (Education) CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY AT LONG BEACH
2020 2018
“Black Madonna”, William Turner Gallery, Santa Monica, CA “Love and Loathing”, California State University Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA “Spirits, Ghosts and Other Distractions”, California State University, Channel Islands, Camarillo, CA “Mantras and Musings”, Lora Schlesinger Gallery, Santa Monica, CA “The Egun Squad”, Offramp Gallery, Pasadena, CA “Lookin’ Back in Front of Me”, Mark Steven Greenfield 1974-2014, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA “Doo Dahz”, Off Ramp Gallery, Pasadena, CA “Blackatcha … Once Again”, ISI Arti Associate, Naples, Italy “Othello’s Ghost”, Off Ramp Gallery, Pasadena, CA “Mammygraphs”, Wignall Museum, Chaffey College, Rancho Cucamonga, CA “Incognegro”, Sweeney Art Gallery, University of California, Riverside, CA “Incognegro”, 18th Street Art Center, Santa Monica, CA “Post Minstrel”, Steven Turner Gallery, Beverly Hills, CA “Blackatcha”, Reginald Ingraham Gallery, Los Angeles, CA “Iconography”, Mount Saint Jancinto College, San Jancinto, CA “Spirit House”, Project Row Houses, Houston, Texas “Iconography”, The Banner Series, Los Angeles Southwest College, Los Angeles, CA “Crenshaw Consciousness”, California State University Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA “Crenshaw Consciousness”, William Grant Still Art Center, Los Angeles, CA
Solo Exhibitions:
2017 2015 2014 2011 2009 2008 2007 2004 2000 1998 1997 1987 1986 Selected Group Exhibitions:
2020 2019 2018
2017
2016
2015 2014 2013 2012 2011
“Graphic Subversion”, California State University, Northridge, CA “Personal Truth”, El Camino College, Torrance, CA “1619-2019, Four Hundred Years of African American History, Lansing Community College, Lansing, MI “Four Million Angeles”, Annenberg Beach House Gallery, Santa Monica, CA “Visions of Elysium”, Inland Empire Museum of Art, Upland, CA “Conjurations, Varieties of the Abstract Experience”, Coagula Curatorial, Los Angeles, CA “Legacies”, California State University Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA “In Pursuit of Beauty”, 3331 Arts Gallery and Imagine Gallery, Tokyo, Japan “Made in Cotton”, California State University Dominguez Hills, Carson, CA “Dimensions in Black”, Manetti-Shrem Museum, University of California Davis, Davis, CA “One Year, Art of Politics Los Angeles”, Brand Library Gallery, Burbank, CA “Made in Cotton”, LA Art Core, Los Angeles, CA “Recharging the Image: Selections from the Warsh-Mott Collection”, Visual Arts Center, Summit, New Jersey “Farewell Eden”, Stuart-Haaga Gallery, La Canada, CA “Los Angeles Art Now”, The Blue Roof Museum, Chengdu, China “Los Angeles Art Now”, I Box Gallery, Chengdu, China “Visual Exchanges”, Korean American Cultural Center, Los Angeles, CA “The Armory Show”, (Ricco Maresca Gallery) New York, New York “Chicago Art Expo”, (Ricco Maresca Gallery) Chicago, Illinois “One Shot”, Loft at Liz’s, Los Angeles, CA “Go Tell It on the Mountain”, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA “Sea of Exchange, Ireland – Los Angeles”, LA Print Space, West Hollywood, CA “International Art Exchange Exhibition Korea-USA”, Gangdong Art Center, Seoul, South Korea “COLA Individual Artist Fellowship Exhibition”, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2010
2009 2007 2006 2005 2004
2003 2002
2001
2000 1996 Awards:
“Places of Validation: Art and Progression”, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA “Inscription”, Cerritos College Art Gallery, Cerritos College, Norwalk CA “Social/Political Content”, Jose Drudis Biada Gallery, Mt. Saint Mary’s University, Brentwood, CA “Latitude 30-40”, Art 1307, Naples, Italy “4th Thai-USA Exchange Art Exhibition”, Chiang Mai Art Museum, Chiang Mai, Thailand “4th Thai-USA Exchange Art Exhibition”, Thailand Cultural Center, Bangkok, Thailand “Small Works”, Off Ramp Gallery, Pasadena, CA “Distinctly Los Angeles: An African American Perspective”, M. Hanks Gallery, Santa Monica, CA “West/Southwest”, 516 Arts, Albuquerque, CA “Blacks In and Out of the Box”, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA “Impressions”, El Camino College Art Gallery, Torrance, CA “Alterations”, Eisentrager-Howard Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE “Marks, Scratches and Doodles”, Beckstrand Gallery, Palos Verdes Art Center, Palos Verdes, CA “Confessions”, Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA “Surface Tension”, Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles, CA “Whiteness: A Wayward Construction”, University of Virginia, Museum, Charlottesville, VA “Fade”, Luckman Fine Arts Gallery, Los Angeles, CA “Broad Territories”, University of California Riverside, California Museum of Photography, Riverside, CA “Identification”, Highways Gallery, Santa Monica, CA “Only Skin Deep”, International Center for Photography, New York, NY “Whiteness: A Wayward Construction”, Laguna Art Museum, Laguna, CA “Redux”, Luckman Fine Arts Gallery, Los Angeles, CA “Color, Culture and Complexity”, Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, Atlanta, GA “Sketches and Gestures”, Mullin Gallery, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA “In Pursuit of Peace”, 18th Street Gallery, Santa Monica, CA “History and Mystery”, Steve Turner Gallery, Beverly Hills, CA “Storefront Live”, Korean American Museum, Los Angeles, CA “Blackface/Whiteface”, LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM “Represent”, Kellogg Art Gallery, Cal Poly Pomona, Pomona CA “Banned & Barred”, BC Space Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA “Bridging Time”, LA Artcore Gallery, Los Angeles, CA “Politically Incorrect”, Gallery 825, Los Angeles, CA “Skin/Veneer”, Angels Gate Cultural Center Gallery, San Pedro, CA “Capital Art”, Track 16 Gallery, Santa Monica, CA “Charm Offensive”, Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles, CA “Looking Forward, Looking Black”, Tufts University Gallery, Medford, MA “Dae Jon/LA Contemporary Art Exhibition”, Woo Yeon Gallery, Dae Jon, South Korea “Affirming a Visual Heritage”, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA
2021 Loghaven Artist Residency, Knoxville, TN 2016 McColl Center for Art + Innovation Residency, Charlotte, NC 2013 Instituto Sacatar Fellowship and Residency, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil 2012 California Community Foundation Fellowship 2011 COLA Individual Artist Fellowship Award, Los Angeles, CA 2010 Los Angeles Artist Fellowship Laboratory Grant, Los Angeles, CA 2006 Center for Cultural Innovation, ARC grant, Los Angeles, CA 2006 6th International Art Festival Workshop Award, Chiang Rai,Thailand 1998 LA Artcore Crystal Award, Los Angeles, CA 1998 Project Row Houses Residency, Houston, TX 1986-87 House of Seagrams Graduate Fellowship 1969 Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company Scholarship
Selected Collections:
Menelik-Woolcock Collection, Charlotte, NC Cerritos College Public Art Collection, Cerritos, CA Monte Cedros Collection, Pasadena, CA Robert and Karen Duncan Collection, Omaha, NE Bert Voorhees and Catherine Arias Collection, Malibu, CA Olga Garay and Kerry English Collection, Highland Park, CA Charmaine Jefferson and Garrett Johnson Collection, Los Angeles, CA Dr. William Weathers Collection, Los Angeles, CA Cynthia Simonelli and Renato Pena Collection, Naples, Italy CCH Pounder Collection, New Orleans, LA University of California Santa Barbara Special Collections, Santa Barbara, CA Jack and Mary Lou Rutberg Collection, Los Angeles, CA Dr. Stephen Kanter Collection, Pasadena CA California African American Museum Collection, Los Angeles, CA Lawrence Fishburne Collection, Los Angeles, CA Nia Long Collection, Beverly Hills, CA Joan Aarestad and David Oswalt Collection, Pasadena, CA Lyndon and Janine Barrois Collection, Los Angeles, CA Zimmer Children’s’ Museum Permanent Collection, Los Angeles, CA Mitch Loch and Taylor Van Horne Collection, Paris, France San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA Baltimore Museum of Art Collection, Baltimore, MD City of Los Angeles Art Collection, Los Angeles, CA Mott-Warsh Foundation Collection, Flynt, MI Steve Tisch Collection, New York, NY Tufts University Collection, Medford, MA Mike Stoller and Corky Hale Stoller Collection, Los Angeles, CA Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Collection, Los Angeles, CA John and Angela Witherspoon Collection, North Hollywood, CA Los Angeles County Museum of Art Print Collection, Los Angeles, CA Dr. V. Joy Simmons Collection, Los Angeles, CA Lamonte and Martina Westmorland Collection, Pasadena, CA Richard Pryor Collection, Los Angeles, CA Cecil Ferguson Collection, Los Angeles, CA Steve Turner and Victoria Dailey Collections, Beverly Hills, CA The Metropolitan Transit Authority Permanent Collection, Los Angeles, CA Edwina and David Dedlow Collection, La Canada, CA Irving Meyer and Kathie Foley-Meyer Collection, Los Angeles, CA Arnold Tenenbaum Collection, Charleston, SC Brockman Gallery Collection,, Los Angeles, CA Dr. Vaughn Payne Collection, Los Angeles, CA Thom Mount and Chloe King Collection, Orange, CA Ralph and Rebecca Clark Collection, Oakland, CA D.L. Hughley Collection, Agoura Hills, CA Dr. Andre Tweed Collection, Los Angeles, CA