Inspired by the late Maya Angelou's “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”, group exhibition Songs of the Caged Bird urges visitors to reflect on the beauty of unbound personal expression. This abstract art show celebrates Maryland-based African-American artists and depicts the artistry that springs forth from creativity and exploration.
The Banneker-Douglass Museum (BDM) presents Songs of the Caged Bird as part of a series of exhibitions celebrating the 50th Anniversary Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture (MCAAHC). Established in 1969, MCAAHC was the first ethnic commission in the United States, born out of the desire to preserve and promote African American voices in Maryland. Songs of the Caged Bird poetically expresses the dynamic power and impact of this legacy.
FEATURED ARTISTS
daniel brooking
My work is often hard edged because I like images to be well defined. None of my work is sketched or preplanned. I may appear to simply start but only because I have been jarred out of the day-to-day world by an intriguing idea. For me, light and color create an intimate dance.
I am influenced by the senses, all of them. A good meal can inspire as well as a fine sculpture or a fabric's weave. Touch, sight, sound, taste and smell all reach me and stir my imagination. I believe art should stir the senses, delight the eye and intrigue the mind. I follow the spirit of Sankofa, reaching back into the past to find a memory, bring it forward to inform my art and make it new.
Joseph Edwards
Diane Small English
The Songs of the Caged Bird exhibit allows me to spread my wings artistically in work created to address freedom from oppression. As an Alcohol Ink Artist I share my unique prospective through vibrant colors and intriguing patterns, the fluidity of the ink allows for a different adventure each time.
T.H. Gomillion
I think every artist subconsciously want to evolve themselves. As an artist I exist because the world is not perfect and some sort of pressure surround me. What excites me most is the pressure of exploring my own insight and expanding upon them, because I always want to prove to myself that I can do different things.But most importantly I have not forgotten to learning as I go.
Aziza Gibson-Hunter
As this piece began to take shape, the songstress Aretha Franklin made her transition. Her death had a profound effect on me. Her music marked my adolescence during the mid sixties through the early seventies. Ms. Franklin and her music gave melody and rhythm to an era of resistance, turmoil, courage and pain for Black people in America and throughout the African diaspora. She inspired us and soothed us. Her music provided a magnificent sense of reciprocity between an artist and a nation/race. Like an electric current there was a circulation of a spiritual energy that is eternal
Simba Simbi translated from the Kicongo language means, ”hold up that which holds you up”.(K. Kia Bunseki Fu-Kiau,PhD, Simba Simbi, 2006) The life force inherent in Ms. Franklin, and her music held Black people up and together during a time of great challenge.
Esther Iverem
Esther Iverem is a multi-disciplinary artist, writer and independent journalist. Her diverse body of work, which includes a show on Pacifica Radio, three books, two digital media projects and several visual art exhibits, is about social justice and human existence—its history, current state and possible futures. It is also about the environment, including its mysteries extending into the universe. Since 2010, her fiber and multi-media works have been featured in two one-woman shows, several group shows and acquired for personal collections. She has curated two shows at DCAC—the District of Columbia Arts Center, including, in 2013, “Emancipation: Meditations of Freedom,” to mark the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. In her recent work, she interrogates physical and economic violence against people and violence against the planet (and that interrogation is what brought her to his exhibit about the caged bird that sings). Her most recent book and art project, “Olokun of the Galaxy,” is inspired by an African spirit for the deepest ocean, honors Earth’s oceans and ecosystem and honors those who perished or descended from the Atlantic Slave Trade.
Magruder Murray
Ulysses Marshall
I am called by many names but never the one I was given at birth. I am a stranger in a land called Freedom/I am an EXILE
Ida Mitchell
Kindred Spirit Blue (below) is the third painting in a series of three. Each painting is similar but Kindred Spirit in Blue is the one that have the most movement in the body. This figure came to resemble an African mask that looks like it is dancing. This painting was sketched at first and then as I started with the colors, the painting became more alive.
The Protector (below) is a painting that I did not sketch. I just got on the canvas and start seeing images and expound on them. The images in the painting looked to be a whale up top and an alligator under this and a bird coming down then a lady on the side protecting a person. This is what I saw, however, anyone can interpret this painting into whatever they see but this is what I saw while painting.
Betty Murchison
In the painting, Room With Figure, there came to me a realization that I did not want the feeling in the work to be static, but to move. As I painted, I felt unafraid, as if nothing could go wrong, and I am happy with the outcome.
Greta Chapin-McGill
This vision [for 300 Dreams] came to me after a visit to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. This city was home to the Dutch West Indies Company. One of its governors, Paulus Godin negotiated a contract with the crown of Spain (Asiento de negros) to bring every year 4,000 Kidnapped Africans to the island of Curacao for a duration of 5 years. I looked directly into the eyes of a man responsible for fully ten percent of the genocide of my people. An event that affects the continent of Africa to this day. In the language of the Asiento de negros one third of this cargo had to be women. This is story of this painting. What were the dreams of those women chained at the command of Paulus Godin…one of them was most certainly one of my originals…did she dream of me or was it someone else. An "African American" who could change the thinking of the world.
This vision [Havana] is a dream of the indigenous women of the Caribbean. They were forced to intermingle with Europeans. The original populations of the Caribbean were eliminated when their lands were "discovered " by the Europeans. The European efforts to control the area for their own economic means subjected the populations to diseases and another unique form of genocide called slavery.. They needed the area to stage individuals for sale and shipment to South America and the growing colonies of North America, grow, sugar, and increase their wealth through co-opting the material riches of the culture. This woman is a dream of pride and survival. Never forgetting her origins and teaching them to her family. I see this in the intense practice of the ancient religions and culture preserved in the southern part of the American hemisphere.
Amber Robles-Gordon
Flight of The Chicken Wire began as a 120 in x120 in piece of chicken wire, mounted on wooden frame. All of the materials, ribbon, fabric, gimp, leather and so on are woven through the “flexible galvanized wire, with hexagonal gaps.” I chose to weave chicken wire, because it is literally an over sized grid or matrix. Which, I interpret to be representational of our patriarchal society. Chicken wire (the raw material) is traditionally used to restrain the movement of or prevent the escape of chickens. This structure was the ultimate visual representation of the constructs and restrictions that weigh down women within society. Weaving materials that are generally associated with feminine energy, through the chicken wire structure was truly cathartic and purposeful. A visual and metaphorical method of balancing and giving life to the solid, metal structure. While creating these artwork I found the ritualistic movement of weaving to be entrancing and highly meditative. The action of weaving teaches one to create and maintain a rhythmic flow to the process. For example, I realized that my ribbons had to be in a specific place or that certain hand movements allowed me to weave faster. As I worked with all of the varying materials and the details of the structure and the characteristics of the environment, I realized that collectively they caused a level of entrainment. The color of the materials, the white wall as background, the exploring of negative, and positive space, the ringing and chiming of bells and the movement of weaving all sang in harmony. I consider Chicken Wire Series to be climactic, because it is a visual representation of my bond with texture and color and it brings conceptual and aesthetic resolution to my thesis body of work.
Tony J. Spencer
Kamala Subramanian
My 2016-19 works are based upon the Middle Passage. Inspiration has come through many sources during my evolving research on the Atlantic journey from freedom into slavery. Haunted by visual, literary and musical images, I try my best to translate my responses into visual interpretations through lines, colors, movement and rhythms. I have many favorite fire starters that ignite my imagination with one favorite being Omar Sosa's ‘Across the Divide.’
I especially enjoy the process of experimentation with a variety of art mediums such as acrylic paints, inks, graphite, collage and found objects. Through my journeys and ‘treasure hunts’ I collect and incorporate natural and man-made items to connect and enhance a particular emotion or experience within a given scenario.
Special thanks to the Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture, Banneker-Douglass Museum Foundation, Theodore Mack, Lilian Thomas Burwell, and all of the artists featured in this exhibition!