Beholder
Works by Sydney Bell, Demeree Douglas, Clymenza Hawkins, Ebony B. Mckelvey, and Alexzandria Robin
Orchid Gallery
The Lab at ConnCORP
Hamden
Through Oct. 3
The world around the woman in the boat, even depicted as abstract collage, comes across as riotous, energetic, teeming with life. It would be a sight to behold, if the woman in the boat had her eyes open. But, as the title of Clymenza Hawkins’s work implies, she’s experiencing it all in a different way, prioritizing ears over eyes. Judging by her serenity, she’s getting what she wants, too; the pleasure comes in part by her choosing how she wants to perceive and understand the world around her, and she is seemingly unconcerned by how she’s perceived in kind.
The piece is part of “Beholder,” a group art show encompassing collage, drawing, painting, photography, photomontage, and sculpture at the Orchid Gallery.
The exhibition “showcases artworks that reveal the subjective, interwoven nature of art, beauty, and Black womanhood, expanding the narrow stereotypes that bind the three,” writes curator Nico w. okoro in an accompanying statement.
In the show, “Black women artists depict and celebrate the unrivaled beauty of other Black women, on their own terms. In so doing, they also challenge the many toxic beauty standards designed to exclude them from discussions on what art is and who is entitled to artistic representation.” In keeping with the title, “visitors are asked to lend their unique perspectives to beholding the artworks on view,” okoro continues. “Here, beauty lies not only ‘in the eye of the beholder,’ ” but also “within each artist’s distinct depiction of and reverence for the art that is Black womanhood.”
Much is gained in “Beholder” by understanding living life a certain way as making art. “In shaping our own senses of self and identity, we self-fashion, making aesthetic decisions that reconcile how we look in relation to who we want to be,” okoro writes. “This healing, individualistic process often bumps up against immense external pressures to assimilate, such as binary dress codes and respectability politics that dictate how we show up in the world.” But “in ‘Beholder,’ beauty is regarded not as an extrinsic force that acts upon, but rather as an intrinsic spirit or energy that radiates from within.”
Each of the artists has their own motivations for the art they make. “Inspired by the powerful women in her life, Ebony B. Mckelvey’s portraits depict the Black woman’s strength, beauty, and resilience, all while critiquing the society that denies her peace and the ability to be soft,” okoro writes. Demeree Douglas, meanwhile, “sees her own natural hair journey as a source of inspiration in creating these vibrant paintings that celebrate the Natural Hair Movement, which began in the 1960s alongside the Black is Beautiful Movement, and resurged in the 2000s as awareness circulated around the health dangers of hair-straightening chemicals.” Sydney Bell’s paintings offer “an image that quite literally depicts beauty’s residence within both the eye of the beholder and that of the beheld. She reminds us of the power of perspective.” For Alexzandria Robin, “each doll stands as a testament to resilience and transformation. The ball-jointed mechanism itself symbolizes adaptability: the ability to bend, pivot, and re-form in response to life’s shifting circumstances.” And Clymenza Hawkins seeks to depict “WomenFolk, visionaries of their own destinies.”
As okoro frames it, what the artists have in common with one another is that, in essence, they see the people in their art not as subjects, but as fellow artists. Each of the people depicted in the works is engaged in an act of creation and communication, with the world around them and with themselves. In making art about them, Bell, Douglas, Hawkins, Mckelvey, and Robin are extending the thread of communication, and art making, to us, the viewers. On one level, that’s a generous gesture — everyone is an artist!
But there’s a challenge in the gesture, too. Some of the women in the artworks are building their identities and affecting the world around them out of a sense of necessity, perhaps even survival. They must assert themselves in the face of the societal forces arrayed against them. But in every case, what they’re doing is the result of deliberate action. All of us viewing them are artists, too, okoro’s framing suggests, but not everything we do may be so deliberate. We may be shaping ourselves and altering our environment without knowing it. What if we changed that? What if we became aware of ourselves as artists, like the people in the art in “Beholder?” What kind of people might we then become? And what kind of world might we be able to usher into being?
“Beholder” runs through Oct. 3 at Orchid Gallery in the Lab At ConnCORP, 496 Newhall St., in Hamden. Visit the gallery’s website for more information.
