Art Heaux Chronicles vol. I
Reflections on visiting recent gallery exhibitions of contemporary artists Brittney Leeanne Williams and Torkwase Dyson
Let me start by saying that I have no formal art credentials. It’s important to name my positionality in all this because some people like to tussle. I don’t identify as alt or an #arthoe or a Solange stan - though I do appreciate her music. I do, however, have a budding interest in visual art, largely informed by grad school. As it turns out, a lot of pursuing mythological studies involves looking at beautiful artwork throughout history. The professor I ranted about in Fly in the Buttermilk has helped me appreciate art in ways I never did before, and I appreciate them for that.
“I have not named the professor intentionally because I have come to hold deep affection and respect for them; they have taught me so much about aesthetics and world history, challenging my tendency to be simultaneously intellectually dismissive and arrogant.” - Jasmyne Gilbert, Fly in the Buttermilk, 2024
So I’m using “art heaux” to mean faux art hoe. I love living in a city with world-class museums and one of my new favorite hobbies is going on dates with my beloved to bask in beautiful art. In fact, I recently made a commitment to myself to interact with Black art in Los Angeles regularly by visiting a museum or gallery at least once a month. I am not creative in a visual way (yet) but I love beauty and I love the sense of awe that art invokes in me, especially as a person prone to melancholy. I need all the awe I can get these days, and I find that spending time in museums is wonderful creative tinder for my writing. As a bonus, it’s been a great, typically free, way to see parts of the city that I wouldn’t visit otherwise.
Brittney Leeanne Williams: The Form in Which the Spirit Dresses
I hadn’t heard of Brittney Leeanne Williams until a couple of months ago as I was browsing Ocula for Black art exhibitions in LA. Funny enough, I attended a lecture about esoteric art this summer, and Dr. Amy Hale mentioned that esoteric visual and performance art created by artists of color was under-researched in academia. Challenge accepted, Dr. Hale… A few weeks later, I learned about Williams’ exhibition.
Per the gallery’s website, The Form in Which the Spirit Dresses was William’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles. Its primary theme is “theophany” which refers to visible manifestations of the divine, or angelic visitations in Williams’ case. The exhibition was the perfect way for me to kick off spooky season. The paintings were arresting and haunting, almost like when you realize someone is watching you from afar. My personal favorite was Interruption 6, William’s interpretation of Jacob wrestling the angel from Genesis 32.
Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go until you bless me.”
Genesis 32:25-28, The New Oxford Annotated Bible, 2010, p. 57
You can learn more about Brittney Leeanne Williams: The Form in Which the Spirit Dresses in an interview with the artist and the exhibition description on Anat Egbi’s website.
Torkwase Dyson: Here
If you’ve read any of the works by Christina Sharpe or Saidiya Hartman, you’ve probably heard the name Torkwase Dyson. Her work deals explicitly with slavery and colonialism through a process of abstraction she calls “black compositional thought.” The work is multimodal, largely rendered in black and gray, with the occasional accent of blue, yellow, or white.
Dyson’s Here has several themes in common with Williams’ Form: the presence of eyes/themes of ocularity, use of geometric shapes and curved lines, placing attention on Black bodies, and representing movement and liminality. More aptly for the season, both exhibitions depict paranormal presences: the hauntings of the enslaved and visitations from angels, respectively. The gallery hosting Dyson’s exhibition was eerie, almost like a mortuary, befitting of the subject matter with such titles as Ossuaries 3.1
My favorite piece was Ocular Brutality (Bird and Lava), probably because it felt the most tangible for me. I’m learning that I welcome the artist to hold my hand as I engage with their work, especially someone whose primary mode of expression is abstract. I don’t always “get it” but I find it no less intriguing.
A 2023 interview with Dyson is an in-depth conversation about the themes in her art. Now that I’ve listened to the interview (thank you, Amanda!), I want to return to the exhibition to see what is more clear for me. You can learn more about Torkwase Dyson: Here through the exhibition description on the Pace Los Angeles website.
I invite you to learn more about the portfolios of contemporary artists Brittney Leeanne Williams and Torkwase Dyson by visiting their websites. And you really should go to the gallery website to look at professional photos of their works. Mine don’t do them justice.
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An ossuary is a chamber for storing bones. Learn more on Atlas Obscura: https://www.atlasobscura.com/lists/definitive-guide-to-ossuaries-crypts-and-catacombs.
Looking forward to more Art Heaux Chronicles! This was a good read. Learning about black artists and just the fun in thinking about the concepts/themes in their work and how interdisciplinary it is makes me wish I could spend a year dedicated to appreciating art of the diaspora.