By Amy Graham
The “Art Spoken Show” was created to give a voice to artists that are suppressed from mainstream art at Valdosta State University. Diversity and inclusion like the Art Spoken Show have been discouraged and suppressed over the past year because of government laws and political issues. The Valdosta National is an annual show done in Valdosta that calls for art from all over the country. The artwork is then judged by a juror and the top three earn a prize based on ranking. This year the show was supposed to be about Black culture and experiences. Valdosta National and Art Spoken were combined this year to speak out against legislation from the government that has been put in place to suppress inclusion of the BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities.
The Valdosta National: Art Spoken exhibition is in the Dedo Maranville Fine Arts Gallery. It includes many different races and ethnicities. Twelve of the artists were chosen by the Juror, Olivia Richardson. She is a printmaker from Northern Virgina and is a co-founder of Radical Intersectional Printmakers’ Guild. She chose these twelve artist based on their story telling and their potential for challenging conversations. Each of these artists has a story to tell through their art piece(s). This exhibition includes more than the artists chosen by the juror. It includes pieces chosen by the art faculty at Valdosta State University. There are six student pieces that were selected to be in the show to represent the student body of Valdosta State University. There are 32 artworks in the show, and of these three were chosen to best represent the show based on the piece’s theme and craftmanship. The winners are Rick Yasko’s If Only in first place, Larry Sheffield’s Study of a Kintaur-1 in second place, and Jonas Thaler’s Shadows of Santolina in third place. All the winning artworks are prints.
The artworks are not organized by artist or by type of medium. They are placed on the walls at eye level. They lead you around the perimeter of the room but there are two vases in a nook at the back right of the room. Antebellum 20 and Antebellum 29 are particularly interesting because they are in a dimly lit area so you can see the light coming from inside them. They caught my interest because they are in an odd location, and they have so much detail. They are covered in a dark colored paint with cut outs that allow light through. It is also covered in swirl-like patterns and flowers, including cotton plants. There are wires wrapped around the top of the vases like flowers. The wires have images attached that resemble the ones on the bottom portion of the base. Each of the vases spins but in opposite directions. These vases are meant to show ancestry, focusing on the experiences of African Americans, which is represented by the metallic red teardrops near the cotton plants. They represent the horrors that African American slaves went through in American history. I found this to be one of the best pieces to show the theme of African American representation.
One of the other pieces that I believe to be a great representation of the theme was A’Shadrian Clayton’s Eden. This piece was created using a broken glass, which can be seen with the shards on the top that are not covered in moss. Each of the cracks in the glass are lined with fake moss and or flowers. The moss covers the sides forming a frame around the male figure. This strong male figure has been broken into pieces and separated from himself. It makes the viewer see beauty in the brokenness and strength in hard times. While the the autonomy is not accurate, this piece appeals to the viewer emotionally. It brings you in and makes you think about human life and how similar we are to each other in the hardest times. Richardson in her statement said “we share as many simlarities with each other as we do differences and coming together coexisting and being vulernable with one another is integral to our development as a society.” This piece is one of the best example in the show that depicts how differences and simularities are found in everyone. I would have liked to see more pieces like this one.
Even though this was a nice exhibition there were several pieces that were chosen that confused me because I was not sure of their purpose or meaning. One of these pieces was Aimee Fresia’s Running Away is Always a Possibility. This piece is another mixed media piece that includes a painting of a road and sky with vine like plants around the border. The vine-like plants seem to form a circle around the road. They are prints of plants on paper that is attached to a canvas. It seems that they are meant to make you slow down and think about the road ahead of you. It is a great piece all together with its bright colors and textures, but it was different from the rest of the works in the show. It may have been intended to represent women who are not given a voice. Even so, this piece confuses me because I was not sure what I was supposed to see or how it relates to the theme of the show.
It seems like the juror really enjoys printmaking and printing because her top three pieces are all prints. This exhibition is made up of mostly prints with a couple of paintings and sculptures. Most of the paintings were chosen by the art faculty, not the juror. I think Richardson wanted to play it safe with her choices. Her artist statement makes it sound like inclusivity was the main theme of this exhibition, not African American representation. Inclusitivy and African American representation are not exclusive to one another, but they are different in how they are expressed and examined. If this is an exhibition about inclusivity, I expect to see artists from different backgrounds . However, if the exhibition is about African American representation, I expect to see more Africa American artists. This would explain why there are so many artworks that have nothing to do with African American culture or experiences. I feel like Richardson played it too safe with her choices. There should have been more controversy with the theme so that it could have challenged the viewers to see more of the social injustices that suppress minority voices in art. Even her artist statement felt like they wanted to play it safe and not offend anyone. However, her artist statement takes a huge risk of mentioning Lebanon and Israel-Palestine conflicts. This exhibition felt like it was not cohesive and like it should have been more insightful or more diverse. There will be no change, if there is no outcry. It is important to bring people together and be inclusive, but it is even more important to speak out and bring attention to the problems in society. I think Richardson did that in the last few sentances of her juror statement, but I would have liked to have seen it more in the art itself. In the future, we should be able to see what the true meaning of Art Spoken really is and how it translates into society.
Amy Graham a Junior at Valdosta State University majoring in Art Education. Aftter graduation, she plans to become an art teacher for any grade from elementary to high school.