With Meaning
A Process in Time
November 22 through December 30, 2023

Press Release

WITH MEANING: A PROCESS IN TIME 

From November 22 through December 30, 2023, the Wilmer Jennings Gallery at Kenkeleba is pleased to present WITH MEANING: A PROCESS IN TIME. The exhibition represents a significant gathering of African American artists whose paintings and prints were made between the end of Slavery until the present day. The works, culled from the archives of the Kenkeleba House Collection, reveal a focused presentation. Works in the exhibition are both abstract and representational paintings in oil and acrylic, and prints of diverse processes and techniques, including Aquatint, Etching, Intaglio, Lithograph, Linocut, Monotype and Woodcut.

The 41 artists are Charles Alston, James Presley Ball, Henry Mike Bannarn, Edward Mitchell Bannister, Robert Blackburn, Betty Blayton, Frank Bowling, Grafton Tyler Brown, Vivian Browne, Pauline Powell Burns, Margaret Burroughs, William Sylvester Carter, Arthur Coppedge, Eldzier Cortor, Allan Crite, Richard Dempsey, Aaron Douglas, Robert S. Duncanson, Lamerol A. Gatewood, Cynthia Hawkins, Palmer Hayden, Humbert Howard, Mary Howard Jennings, Wilmer A. Jennings, Henry Bozeman Jones, Lois Mailou Jones, Charlotte Ka, Norman Lewis, Richard Mayhew, James Bolivar Needham, Joe Overstreet, Mavis Pusey, William Edouard Scott, William E. Smith, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Alma Woodsey Thomas, Mildred Thompson, James Lesesne Wells, Ellis Wilson, Hale Woodruff and Roy H. Woodruff. 

Many of the works produced in the 19th Century have references to slavery and carry a particular deep reading of African and African American experiences. Tanner’s Saranac Lake was a principal site on the Underground Railroad, and Bannister’s seascape, The Doryman, is in proximity to a Slave-trading Port. Douglas’ 1929 Grain Silo, Buffalo, NY also speaks to the Underground Railroad. The 1890’s oil canvas, Still Life with Fruit, was painted by Thomas Jefferson’s great granddaughter, Pauline Powell Burns.

Some works mark the Great Migration of African Americans out of the South, as in Howard’s Port Haven, the first Black Township in the North, and Menemsha Shacks, Martha’s Vineyard by LM Jones pays homage to the Wampanoag Whalers who provided refuge to slaves escaping the South. Burroughs’ 2002 urban Roof Tops references inner-city Chicago.

Landscape paintings can be important signals of culture. WITH MEANING highlights the skill and perspective of artists who desired to paint the environment, such as Hen Jones (Pennsylvania Landscape) and Wilmer Jennings (Georgia Landscape); and at the same time, Ellis Wilson’s Turpentine Farm shows the brutality of the Turpentine Industry’s forced labor camps that produced resin used to caulk holes in wooden boats and slave ships, and, ironically to make oil paintings.

Artists whose experimentation with different materials and abstract techniques include Overstreet (Untitled) and Gatewood (Untitled from Energy Series), whose squares, circles and rectangles create a complex symbolic language. The work of multidisciplinary and multimedia artist Mildred Thompson (Helio Centric #1) reveals her study of physics and astronomy as compositional references.

 Gallery Hours:  Wednesday to Saturday, 11 am to 6 pm
Location:  219 East Second Street at Avenue B

Kenkeleba programs are funded in part by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the Ruth Foundation and many generous friends.

Installation Photos : Christian Carone
Invitation Design : Calo Rios