Charlotte exhibit explores contemporary Black identity

KYLIE MARSH | THE CHARLOTTE POST

Charlotte-born artist Romare Bearden's collage "Before The First Whistle (Early Morning)," 1979 is part of the "How I Got Over" exhibit at Rowe Gallery.

UNC Charlotte’s exhibition of southern Black portraiture, “How I got Over,” gives contemporary Black artists room for self-expression.

In a world where Black people are often depicted by others for sometimes questionable purposes, the show, on view at Rowe Gallery Sept. 12-24, is an exercise in Black people regaining control over the community’s narrative to create a space for authenticity.

With a range of works in mixed media, acrylic painting, photography, and quilts from multidisciplinary artists, the exhibit provides variety. The works are made by a multigenerational group of artists from the South.

Viewers can get an understanding about how Black southerners see themselves as both Americans and “ancestral standard bearers,” according to the exhibition’s literature. The public reception is 6 p.m. on Sept. 12.

Black southerners are the genesis of the African American identity. For Black people who don’t live in the South, most have a parent, grandparent or great-grandparent who did. Curator and author Yvonne Bynoe of She Loves Black Art, is a New Yorker, but her mother’s side of the family is southern.

“I knew I wanted artists that had a real connection to the South, people with lived experiences,” said Bynoe, who lives in Charlotte. She opted to choose emerging artists for the show, which would depict the “multi-facetedness,” of the Black community, focusing on “family, community, but also spirituality,” she said.

The exhibition takes its title from the popular hymn that exemplifies a people who for centuries have faced insurmountable barriers and triumphed by leaning on their faith in God and themselves. The civil rights movement was formed and led primarily by Black southerners.

Gospel music legend Mahalia Jackson, a confidant to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.  performed “How I Got Over” at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The exhibit is accompanied by a playlist curated by Bynoe, with the cookout classic “Back That Thang Up,” and features artists like Nina Simone, Gladys Knight and the Pips and Charlotte native Anthony Hamilton.

It's difficult to pick one standout from the show because each piece is an experience. Virginia painter Terron Cooper Sorrells’ portraits depict a wide range of emotions in the subjects’ faces. One painting, “The Prayer’s Circle,” takes viewers into an intimate and tense scene. Louisiana painter Jay McKay’s portraits will take viewers back to their own neighborhoods by depicting scenes of everyday life. Flat expanses of bright colors contrast with the subjects McKay formed with a wider range of values to convey dimension.

Other works will take viewers back to flipping through their own family photos, like Lori Starnes Isom’s acrylic paintings and pencil drawings, and mixed-media artist DeMarcus McGaughey’s collages, in which subjects are adorned with halos made of wax print fabrics, popular in Africa.

Lastly, fiber artist Aliyah Bonnette’s quilts, which mixed two-dimensional painted portraits with three-dimensional embellishments like cowrie shells, bamboo doorknocker earrings and beaded chains, incorporate elements that will connect with Black women and girls of all generations.

Interspersed between the contemporary works are prints of Charlotte-born Romare Bearden’s collages, which raise depictions of modern Black people to an almost spiritual level.

“Southern Black culture inhabits the specters of West African captives who influenced the food, hairstyles, language, artifacts, and artifacts,” according to the show’s promotional material. Black southerners are the genesis of Black American, and American culture, at large. The exhibition also pays homage to Bearden with the inclusion of prints on loan from the Jerald Melberg gallery.

The works displayed are for sale with prices ranging from $300 to $5,500. One of the missions of Bynoe’s platform, She Loves Black Art, is to provide a space to strengthen the ecosystem of Black artists and collectors.  Bynoe says she has her eyes on Charlotte for future curatorial opportunities.

This article corrects where Yvonne Bynoe lives.

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