BLACK WOMEN BEEN CaLLED MANY THINGS
BLACK WOMEN BEEN CaLLED MANY THINGS
Black Women Been Called Many Things is a pop-up exhibition curated by Ming Joi on the occasion of her 2022 graduation from Spelman College with a Bachelor of Arts in Art History and Curatorial Studies. Sonia Sanchez's poem, "Queens of the Universe," brings forth the exhibition title: we blk / woooomen have been called many things: foxes, matriarchs, whores, bougie / bitches, sweet mommas, blk / bitches, sapphires, sistuhs and recentlee queens. This group show presents the work of 8 artists and friends the curator has met through her academic career, which began at Agnes Scott College in 2017. Three newly commissioned photo portrait series join figurative drawings, paintings, and collage works, each musing on Black womanhood, the power of education, the Black family, and Ming's personal and academic interests. Ming Joi presents Black Women Been Called Many Things, featuring Amari Arrindell, Abdul Barnes, Han on Cam, Edith Elon, Caitlyn Hosford, Prinston Nnanna, Devin Morrison, and Shavawn Simmons - Sunday, May 15th at Parlor Den ATL.
Ming Joi Washington is a May 2022 graduate of the AUC Art History & Curatorial Studies Collective at Spelman College. She is an inaugural recipient of the Alice L. Walton Foundation Art History Scholarship and 2021 recipient of the Anita Ragland Award for Excellence in the Department of Art and Visual Culture. Ming is a curator and communications strategist from Chicago, IL. She has interned at Lubeznik Center for the Arts, the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and Resnicow & Associates. Ming currently works between Atlanta and Los Angeles, supporting Black artists and entrepreneurs as a Getty Marrow Intern at South LA Contemporary and Social Media Strategist at the Village Micro Fund. She is a published poet and art critic for Burnaway and Scalawag magazines.
Authenticity and intimacy are integral and present themes in Amari Arrindell’s artistic practice, which expands space and time, genre and discipline. A self-taught film photographer documenting twenty-first-century life through portraiture and photojournalism, his work bridges the artists’ hand and subject’s aura to make compositions that feel deeply personal. Arrindell strives to tell essential stories and freeze fleeting moments. He is a member of the AUC Collective for the Study of Art History and Curatorial Studies at Morehouse College and a fourth-year Communications Major from Springfield, IL. A former Studio Museum in Harlem intern, Arrindell’s work has been featured in i-D Magazine and is in the AUC Robert W. Woodruff Library Collection. Ming commissioned Amari for portraits with her Spelman mentors and faculty in "Silver Linings", the 25th anniversary permanent collection exhibition at Spelman College Museum of Fine Art. Guests include: Dr. Cheryl Finley, Inagural Director and Distinguished Visiting Professor of the AUC Art History and Curatorial Studies Collective, Spelman Dean, Dr. DeKimberlen Neely, SCMFA Director, Dr. Liz Andrews, Senior Art History Instructor,juia elizabeth neal, Martina Dodd, Museum Education Curator at the Robert W. Woodruff Library, Atlanta University Center, and Jasmine Wilson, former AUC Art Collective Graduate Assistant. Follow Amari and SCMFA on Instagram @amariarrindell and @spelmanmuseum.
Born in St. Louis, Missouri and raised in the nearby east suburbs, Han (full name Hannah Teverbaugh) is a creative photographer currently based out of Chicago, Illinois. While studying at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Han began her own publication entitled “BetterinPrint Magazine” where she personally photographs and interviews creative entrepreneurs from all over the United States including Chicago, Los Angelos, Atlanta, and New York. The multi-faceted creative continues to grow her publication while creating work that exhibits her sharp artistic eye in combination with the narratives of her subjects. Han on Cam captured Ming and her 1981 Harley-Davidson Sportster 1000 in northwest Indiana on a sunny day in February. Inspiration for the two looks come from the archives and were brought to life with stylist Sally Lyndley. Naomi Campbell posing for Peter Lindberg's 1991 American Vogue editor, "Wild At Heart" was reference for the leather and chain look. The Motorcycle Queen of Miami, Bessie Stringfield, inspired the 1940's-esque biking look. The first Black woman to bike the connected United States, Stringfield owned 23 Harley-Davidson bikes in her life, was a stunt performer, served as a civilian currier to the US Army during WWII, and continued riding until transitioning in 1993. In part this photo project adds to Ming's forthcoming exhibition, "Black Women + The American Machine" which she developed during at her time at Spelman. About stylist Sally Lyndley: The Dallas, Texas native began her career as a fashion show producer, where she handled clients such as Chloe, Louis Vuitton, Versace, and Ralph Lauren before taking a position at Vogue Paris under Carine Roitfeld. She later moved to London to become Senior Fashion Editor at Pop Magazine and later, the Editor-at-Large for Love Magazine where she worked with some of the most notable celebrities such as Nicole Kidman, Selena Gomez, Gigi Hadid, and Rihanna. After transitioning into freelance styling full-time, Lyndley relocated to New York and was called upon by brands for her creative eye, collaborating with Saks Fifth Avenue, Marc Jacobs, 7 For All Mankind, Sephora, and BCBG Generation. Sally has contributed to several fashion magazines over the years, such as Love Magazine, V, US Vogue, Teen Vogue, Vogue Italia, POP, British GQ and Dazed & Confused. Her celebrity styling roster includes Drew Barrymore, Victoria Beckham, David Beckham and Kristen Wiig. Recently, Sally created the strategy and business organization for General Merchandise at Harley-Davidson Motor Company. She loves The Muppets, Alaia and motorcycles.
Shavawn Simmons is an emerging self-taught mixed media collage artist. It wasn't until her late fifties that she discovered her talent for combining divergent elements in the creation of mixed media compositions. In 2019, Shavawn brought her talent from the "basement to broadwalk " during the Jonesboro (GA) City Market Fest. There she displayed her original work with prints and greeting cards. She realized others loved her work as much as she did. Simmons evokes passion in her work. She draws on the history of her ancestors with social commentary depicted in the elements of her pieces. Her Instagram (@artsy5672) says-, Black women are my muses. Growing up as a sixties baby, she reflects, " I never saw myself represented on covers of magazines until Ebony and Jet magazines. As a little girl, Sambo was the closest reflection of black life in America." “I want to pay homage to Black women with my work." Nowadays, her work has expanded to include other symbols while continuing to reflect women as a grounding force. On view in this exhibition, SImmons' series, "Grandma's Hands" grew out of response to a conversation the artist had about the Klu Klutz Klan. She says, "After reflecting on this terror group, I needed an outlet and I turned to my art as a way to soothe the pain that I was experiencing, hearing conversations in-jest about the KKK. It caused me to recall my sharecropper grandmother and the sturggle she must have experienced living in the terrorist times in South Carolina, married and raised in a family of 10. Each piece within the series exemplifies the hands and how we as humans use our hands from crafting a quilt to uniting in a protest. Our hands represent what our future can be and what it must be as well as what our past has accomplsihed in pain or in joy. "
“In a world of doubt, Who will?’’ – P. Nnanna Prinston Nnanna is a Brooklyn-based Artist by way of Houston, Texas, working primarily with charcoal, coffee, and acrylic inks. Mr. Nnanna is just beginning to exhibit his intimate, yet subversive, portraits. The charcoal drawn works on hand-toned paper have stood out in the group shows they have been a part of. Recurring motifs include butterflies, bees and geometric patterns that all have iconographical weight within the artist’s practice. His state goal is to “depict the elegance of the Black figure at the same time as reconstructing the image in which society has painted people of colour.” He earned a BA in Arts at Texas Southern University (2016). While studying at Texas Southern Prinston was granted the opportunity to study abroad in Paris, France. There he focused on his cultural studies of the African Diaspora which still has a great impact on his works today. Mr. Nnanna then went on to earn his MFA at The New York Academy of Art(2019). Over the last year Nnanna’s work has been included in several group shows, Paper View, The Hole, Grand Rapids; Drawn Together Again, The Flag Art Foundation, New York; Breaching the Margins, Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, Grand Rapids and as a finalist in the 2019 AXA XL Catlin Art Prize Exhibition, New York Academy of Art, New York. Nanna won first prize for the 19th Annual Citywide African American Artists Exhibition, Houston (2017). Ming and Prinston met on Instagram, follow him @itaddy.
“Before ever being creative with a stick of charcoal, devin was creative with her body. From an early age she was a natural athlete and dancer, who was experimental, and always moved with her heart. Always exhibiting a very rhythmic existence. It is this that has been the source of her artist form and creativity. An Atlanta based artist, devin’s work boldly represent the intimate community of Atlanta. She shines a light on the complexities of black life through narrative composition. She creates drama and wonder in her work through their wide tonal range, placing emphasis on her subjects and their environment. Now more than ever it is important that black people tell their own stories. This is devin’s top priority. The "Swiss Family" presented in this exhibition is a portrait of devin's family on Atlanta's Jackson Street Bridge. For the artist, this work calls to mind scripture from the book of Matthew 5:6, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled." "My work serves as an homage to everyday black women, men, and children. As a black artist, I am dedicated to depicting the actualities of those black lives living in America. Capturing these distinct and unapologetic lives, I am a narrator. My goal is to recognize my subjects in their full form with the intention of discovering something uniquely universal. I use photography as an interdisciplinary medium to establish my compositions. Taking public transportation allows me to experience the world more actively. Most, if not all of my compositions are taken while on the train, the bus or walking. I then transform these photos into large black and white vine charcoal drawings, letting the symbols emerge gradually. Originally drawn to vine charcoals forgiving nature, I have since learned that its delicacy evolves into a drawing that is bold and bright. All characteristics that reflect my experience among black communities", says the artist. Ming and devin met at Agnes Scott College. devin currently makes charcoal drawings in New York City as a Still Standing Artist in Residence. Follow devin on Instgram @sheezzzus.
Abdul Barnes is an Atlanta based artist and muralist studying at SCAD Atlanta. Barnes started painting in 2016 and has exhibited in and around Atlanta at MET Studio, the Coffee Loft, The Bakery, among others. After meeting at a fashion pop-up, Abdul created a portrait of Ming in 2021, the pair have been friends and collaborators since. Outside of art school, Abdul is a certified mechanic and father. Follow him on instagram @astroabdul_.
Caitlyn Hosford is a rising senior at Decatur High School. She comes from a family of artists and enjoys making graphite and digital drawings. Caitlyn plays guitar in her high school band and is a theater actor. She looks forward to broadening her artistic media horizons at college. Caitlyn is a Taurus from Michigan and lives and studies in Decatur, GA. Ming met Caitlyn in 2017 while working as her nanny. Katherine Johnson, the subject of Caitlyn's pencil and watercolor drawing was a mathematician whose calculations helped launch the first successful US spaceflight. Johnson was one of the first black women scientists at NASA and was potrayed by actress Taraji P. Henson in Hidden Figures.
Edith Elon is a multi-disiplinary artist from Atlanta, GA. She is a designer, photographer, and creative director. A 2022 graduate of Spelman College, Edith is an International Studies major with a passion for fashion, music, and traveling. Ming and Edith became friends when they both transferred to Spelman in 2019. Follow Edith on Instagram @edielleco. This collaboration is inspired by the work of Mickalene Thomas, an artist who Ming highlighted in her Spelman College Application Essay.