The university’s Art Gallery is home to a new exhibit of jazz paintings by contemporary artist Faith Ringgold, an exhibit that exclaims a very bold statement: soul.
Growing up in Harlem, Ringgold had many jazz legends in her neighborhood and was engulfed in the musical culture. Theaters on Broadway and in Harlem regularly hosted big names such as Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. As a child, Ringgold attended several performances and fell in love with the excitement and passion of talent. The inspiration from those performances can be seen in her works, “Jazz Stories 2004.”
Ringgold’s creative series is more than just portraits of her favorite jazz musicians. It is a part of her life that has molded her art around her own history as well as the history of America.
During the past 40 years, Ringgold has been an artist, teacher, activist and lecturer who has involved herself with the sensitive issues of racism and sexism in her career and as an enthusiast. Her art has many pieces to it. Topics ranging from slavery to the achievements of the Harlem Renaissance, to marriage and motherhood, are all tied back to her in some shape or form. Ringgold puts her essence into her art to continue her stories and the stories of American history in a personal obligation to society.
The exhibit, “Faith Ringgold: Mama Can Sing, Papa Can Blow,” presented by the David C. Driskell Center and The Art Gallery, provides an unique opportunity to discover jazz in a different art form.
It is rare to find an artist who can tie his or her personal experiences and culture to the experiences and culture of America as Ringgold does. Her paintings reflect not specific characters, but representations of the jazz world. The female lead singers and backup musicians look like they could belong to any jazz band, but Ringgold’s use of bold color, twisted forms and great attention to detail make the subjects look invincible and timeless.
With each figure, there is a feeling of liveliness, as if the heart of the painting is speaking. The brilliant blues, passionate reds and intense blacks make strong statements as if these figures are bathed in light and are constantly in motion.
The first of the two rooms in the exhibit invites guests in with warm, large painted quilts and smaller sketches of the large counterparts, all depicting the usual themes found in jazz: desire, love, pain, disappointment and loss.
On one wall, a quilt titled Somebody Stole My Broken Heart (2004) shows a woman in a bright yellow and gold dress singing with her eyes closed and her mouth open. The brightness of her dress stands away from the blue and black suits of her band in the background, making her the central focus point of the piece. Her arms are outstretched, as if she is moaning in desperation. The blue highlights in the figures’ faces intensify the same sad, desperate feeling of jazzy blues.
Next to it is the song “Somebody Stole My Broken Heart” printed on the wall and a serigraph with the lyrics from the song painted into the border. This painting is much smaller, and the figures are rougher than the ones on the large quilt. Two separate events are displayed: One is similar to the large quilt, the other shows a woman with her head tilted upward and her arms near her sides. The large quilt counterpart of this painting is across the room, shown in deeper colors and richer details.
Almost all of Ringgold’s works are displayed as such – a large quilt with a painted scene, blue highlights in the faces, great details in the clothes of the figures and then near it, a smaller sketch of the same scene with different colors for clothes and flatter features in the faces. The cartoon-like characters are flat, even sloppy, but Ringgold enhances that on purpose to focus on the movement of the scene, not so much the scene itself.
One interesting thing about the background musicians is that Ringgold makes their instruments elongated and disproportionate. In Nobody Will Ever Love You Like I Do (2004), the trumpet player’s horn is painted at a severe angle, juxtaposed from the rest of the instrument. In another, Gonna Get on Away From You (2003), the drummer’s cymbals are much higher than the rest of the set, looking as if the musician can’t really reach them from where he is sitting. The piano, used in some pictures, typically shows the keys, giving the viewer an awkward angle of the painting’s viewpoint.
In the second room of the exhibit are Ringgold’s earlier sketches. There are black panels showing different blue facial outlines of a woman singing, an old man playing a trumpet and rough marker sketches of the completed works shown in the first gallery.
It’s interesting to note the continuing development of the artist’s technique and ideas. Some of the musicians have different instruments, and some of the women are singing in different positions. The progression of Ringgold’s basic sketches is advanced by adding more color, more body and more attitude with each year.
An attitude that captures the meaning of the word “soul.”
“Faith Ringgold: Mama Can Sing, Papa Can Blow” remains on display until Dec. 10.
Contact reporter Lauren Effron at effrondbk@gmail.com.
