Arts & Culture

“Poignant Narratives of Healing” Vogue

“Creating I Am Made Strong was a way for Opoku to reflect on what was happening to her body. ‘I needed something to get away from my worries and to reflect on my journey in a different way. I wanted to transform it from this terrifying moment into a moment of peace,’ she explains. An encounter with an exhibition on ancient Egypt at the New Museum in Berlin proved deeply influential. Taken by the ancient Egyptian belief in the afterlife, Opoku began to study the Book of the Dead, a compilation of Egyptian texts to help the deceased navigate the afterlife and reach a paradise symbolic of their lives on earth. ‘I was so moved by how the Egyptians reconciled with death, that I started thinking about my own possible death differently,’ Opoku says. “If I was meant to leave this life soon, I wanted to create my own chapters reflecting on mortality, and preparing for whatever lay beyond.”

“New York art diary: a miracle on 24th Street,” Financial Times

“I spent time almost every day gazing at work online, recognising how the visual stories of paintings invite me to reconsider the sorts of stories I listen to, believe, tell or advocate for.

We feel and think before we can articulate, and the arts engage us at that primal place. The pandemic has left so many of us bereft of adequate language to express the experience, but art opens narrative possibilities. Engaging with the visual arts is always a move towards internal and external re-examination. And one thing that has come out of the pandemic is a call for a re-examination of how we live, and an examination of what makes a world recognisable, inhabitable and hospitable, and for whom.
Gazing at paintings over the last several months has been like the experience of being at the optometrist as the doctor keeps switching out the lens, saying, “Tell me what you see now. It is better or worse?” I stare at painting after painting, and when I look back at the world, it’s as though I can hear the artist asking, “Tell me what you see now. Is it better or worse?” Art helps with our vision.”

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“How Three Artists are Exploring Mythology and Race” The New York Times

“The intersections of myth, cultural narratives and identity have long inspired artists. Kara Walker and Wangechi Mutu, for example, challenge “traditional” narratives by asking why a certain type of person is the central figure and why the world is said to work in a particular way. There are also newer artists exploring these intersections. By investigating classical myths, Calida Rawles, Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum and Harmonia Rosales are seeking more nuanced ways of depicting the interior lives of Black women. “Artists are storytellers, and as Black women, we’re at the bottom of the pile in society,” Ms. Rawles said in a recent interview. “But that gives us this unique vantage point to look up and see things in our society and culture from multiple angles. We have so much insight, such varied experiences and many stories to tell beyond these stereotyped identities.”

I spoke with these three artists about how their work reflects on the power of myths in shaping and reimagining identities for Black women — in essence offering new universal stories.”