Amos, Emma

The Sky’s the Limit, mosaic mural

The Sky's the Limit, Mosaic mural, represents a natural progression from Emma Amos' paintings, many of which depict figures falling or floating against an abstract and painterly background. Culture, feminism, art history, and personal identity have been referenced in a diverse body of art work.

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/amos_emma.html

Cox, Renee

RAJÉ: A Superhero

In RAJÉ: A Superhero, Cox takes up some issues which she previously addressed in her series, Yo Mama. These large cibachrome prints present Cox in the guise of RAJÉ, an in-your-face-female superhero that puts Wonder Woman to shame, honey. Complete with her own 11 1/2 inch fashion doll and music video, RAJÉ is a state-of-the-art superhero whose hype is as much about her labors as it is about her image. 

http://www.brickhaus.com/amoore/magazine/cox.html

http://projects.gsd.harvard.edu/appendx/dev/issue3/

Fuller, Meta Vaux Warrick

Talking Skull

Celebrated as a sculptor whose artistic vision and understanding of the black experience was well ahead of her contemporaries, Meta Fuller was the first black American artist to draw heavily on African themes and folk tales for her subject matter.

http://www.bridgew.edu/HOBA/Inductees/Fuller.htm

http://edtech.tennessee.edu/itc/grants/twt2000/modules/ebledso1/dictionary.htm

Jackson-Jarvis, Martha

Last Rites: Sarcophagus I

Last Rites: Sarcophagus I, exemplifies the importance of continuity between past  and present.  The focus of the installation is the preservation of life.  Jackson-Jarvis’s sarcophagi represent sacred  elements such as earth, air, water, and blood that invoke Yoruban deities to protect all life.

http://www.creative-capital.org/artists/visual/jackson-jarvis_martha/jackson-jarvis_martha.html

http://virtual.clemson.edu/.../scbg/Sculptures/ Artistpages/MJJ.htm

Jones, Lois Mailou

Initiation - Liberia, 1983
 

http://www.nku.edu/~diesmanj/jones.html

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/jones_lois_mailou.html

http://www.iniva.org/harlem/lois.html

Ka, Charlotte Richardson

Installation, Windows to the Soul

Charlotte Ka creates multi-mediainstallations and mixed mediapaintings.  According to Ka, her works voice metaphorical calls of awakening, of healing, and of hope.  Her work is both political and spiritual. charlotte-ka.com

http://negroartist.com/negro%20artist/NO%20LINK/CHARLOTTE%20KA/index.htm

http://aavad.com/artistbibliog.cfm?id=1637

Lewis, Mary Edmonia

Forever Free

1867

Mary Edmonia “Wildflower” Lewis’s works were infused with both personal relevance and timely human rights issues. At the height of her fame in the late 1860s and 1870s, she captivated both Europeans and Americans.

 http://nmaa-ryder.si.edu/collections/exhibits/lewis/lewisbio.html

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/lewis_edmonia.html

Marshall, Cora

Nkisi [Sankofa]

Cora Marshall’s work is centered in spirituality.  She creates work that seeks out the connections to and lessons from her past.  By mixing symbols and meaning, by affirming the potency of the spirits, by honoring the holy, she extends an invitation to contemplate the significance and depth of the power within.

http://www.art.ccsu.edu/marshallc/Studio.html

www.entitled-bwartists.com/artist/cora_marshall.htmlwww.restorationarts.org/pocket/pages/Marshall.htm

www.restorationarts.org/pocket/pages/Marshall.htm

Maynard, Valerie

Adam and Eve

Valerie Maynard expresses spirituality in public works in stone, wood, metal and ceramics. She embraces all aspects of the art world, working as a fine www.restorationarts.org/pocket/pages/Marshall.htm artist, an educator, a curator, a writer, and a set designer.

 http://www.irapintogallery.com/Maynard.htm

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcla/html/panyc/maynard.html

McCannon, Dindga

The Wedding Party # 1

This quilt portrays a scene of black folks at a wedding. This is a second wedding, hence the bride is wearing an African print dress. Her lace earrings are her something old, made from her great grandmothers doilies. Both sets of their children are there. Her parents are there, (his have passed on).

 http://art-alive.com/dindga/index.htm

Nance, Marilyn

1973
Jesus is the Answer

Through her photographs, Marilyn Nance preserves memories  and reconstructs history.  In part, Nance says she feels that in her art making she hopes to reconstruct history  into a worldview informed by ethical vision and spiritual  sensibilities. 

http://fargo.itp.tsoa.nyu.edu/~nance/soulsista/cv2.html

http://www.lightwork.org/residency/nance.html

http://www.fabulara.com/collab/nance.htm

Pindell, Howardena

Autobiography: Water/Ancestors/ Middle Passage/Family Ghosts, 1988.

Since 1986, Howardena Pindell has made a sequence of ambitious autobiographical works; they all are concerned with the fertile relationships which exist between her experiences as an African-American woman artist, teacher, world traveler, and former curator; and her observations about important contemporary issues at home and abroad.

http://www.varoregistry.com/pindell/

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/pindell_howardena.html

http://www.entitled-bwartists.com

Powers, Harriet

Pictorial Quilt, circa 1886

Born a slave in Georgia in 1837, Harriet Powers created two quilts which are the best known and well preserved examples of Southern American quilting tradition still in existence. Using the traditional African appliqué technique along with European record keeping and biblical reference traditions

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/quilt/harriet.html

http://www.camalott.com/~mpatton/quilt.html

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/powers_harriet.html

Ramsaran, Helen

Cosmic Shelter

When people give in to that special calling to place art and the creative process at the focus of their lives, they embark upon an extraordinary journey which has no point of disembarkation, states Ramsaran. She goes on to say,  “For many years, I have been on such a journey. In my work I tell the story of my odyssey.

http://www.entitled-bwartists.com/

Ringgold, Faith

Dancing at the Louvre

Faith Ringgold began her artistic career more than 35 years ago as a painter. Today, she is best known for her painted story quilts (art that combines painting, quilted fabric and storytelling) and the potent and powerful feminist art in the 1960s and 70s.

http://www.faithringgold.com/

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/ringgold_faith.html

Savage, Augusta

Gamin

When Augusta Savage reached Harlem, it did not take long for her to establish herself not only as an artist, but also as a teacher. Most of Savage's sculptures, in some way, reflect an aspect of African-American culture.

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/savage_augusta.html

Saar, Alison

Love Potion #9

In Alison Saar's sculptures, spirituality and politics meet and reinforce each other. Sharon F. Patton, gallery director, notes that Saar has an inventive and multicultural approach to materials and image-making that produces works that appear unselfconscious, almost folk-like. Betye Saar’s daughter. See below.

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/saar_alison.html

http://www.oberlin.edu/allenart/collection/saar_alison.html

Saar, Betye

The Liberation of Aunt Jemima

Betye Saar states, “There has been an apparent thread in my art that weaves from early prints of the 1960’s through later collages and assemblages and ties into the current installations. That thread is a curiosity about the mystical. I am intrigued with combining the remnant of memories, fragments of relics and ordinary objects, with the components of technology. It's a way of delving into the past and reaching into the future simultaneously. The art itself becomes the bridge.”

http://www.bisaar.com/gal/gallery.html

http://www.wellesley.edu/WomensReview/ archive/2002/11/highlt.html

Scott, Joyce

Man Eating Watermelon

Joyce is a fiber artist, jeweler, sculptor, printmaker and performance and installation artist. She creates art based on statements about racism, sexuality, violence and stereotypes. “It's important to me to use art in a manner that incites people to look and then carry something home - even it it's subliminal - that might make a change in them.”

http://www.tfaoi.com/articles/anne/ae7.htm

http://www.baltimoremagazine.net/monthly/2002/2002_06/whos_who/default.htm

http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/Bahri/Scott.html

Sligh, Clarissa

What’s Happening with Mama

Clarissa Sligh is a widely exhibited independent artist who lives in New York City. She uses photographs as a starting point for layered investigations that often involve writing, drawing or computer manipulations. Her work asks questions about family, society, ethnicity and gender by integrating personal and communal experiences.

http://www.cooper.edu/art/techno/artists/sligh.html

http://www.ric.edu/fas/clarissa/october%20series/cshmp1.html

http://www.vsw.org/exhibitions/traveling/slightext.html

Snowden, Gilda

Self in a Storm

Gilda Snowden's works reflect the many influences on her artistic development: the urban environment of Detroit, where she continues to work; the loss of her parents in 1987, which forced her to consider the unpredictable nature of life; and a broad knowledge, acquired through her studies of American art history. Her works are often abstract representations of the forces and inner turmoil that drive humanity.

www.artgallery.umd.edu/.../exhibition/ sec5/snow_g_01.htm http://members.aol.com/GSnow19543/

Stout, Renee

She Wanted to Cure Society’s Ills

Alleviating suffering and healing the human spirit are the two primary themes of Stout's most recent work. Although she has drawn on the African healing model, which invokes spirits not only to bring relief but to visit retribution, Stout's vision is largely confined to forging positive change. She has created a series of individual pieces that image and imagine solutions to a myriad of psychic and social ills, identifying directly with the needs and desires of both petitioner and practitioner.

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/stout_renee.html

http://nmaa-ryder.si.edu/collections/exhibits/kscope/stoutexhframe.html

http://www.ackland.org/tours/classes/stout.html

Terry, Evelyn Patricia

The Unintentional Anguish of Silence

Terry states that “Most objects in the picture represent something. Symbols are used as a means to connect ideas. In "The Struggle and The Fish" and "In the Beginning, The Obsession", my work centers a round religious questions and spiritual concepts. The generic gingerbread shapes represent people. They became the symbols of my two children in the two later pieces, "Imaginary Blinders of Ignorance, The Thin Line; " and "The Unintentional Silence & The Anguish.

http://www.bilhenrygallery.com/terry/

Thomas, Alma

1896-1984

Flowers at Jefferson Memorial

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/thomas_alma.html

http://nmaa-ryder.si.edu/education/kids/cappy/11athomasbio.html

Wainwright, Babette

Simbi
 

Wainwright describes her work, “My approach to art is rooted in my cultural past. I use forms that define beauty in terms of who I am, a woman of the African diaspora. I want my sculpture to speak of “transformation,” both spiritual and cultural.”

http://www.portalwisconsin.org/online_gallery_artists.cfm?medid=3&sort=medium

Ward-Brown, Denise

In the Shoulders of the Ancestors

Denise Ward-Brown layers fragments of architectural objects to create her sculptures.” Over the past sixteen years, I have developed a visual language based on the concept that architecture is a language of spatial symbolism signifying a culture's sense of place in the universe.”

http://www.deniseward-brown.com/http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~artweb/washUSoa/faculty/wardbrow.html

http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~art/MFA/program/sculpture/faculty/index.shtml