Blackness Portraiture: Kerry James Marshall’s African American Art
African American artist Kerry James Marshall’s ivory Black portraiture paintings are an integral part of contemporary modern art, and an influencial black figure that has created a collection of art pieces to depict presence of African-Americans in western cultural art. He is among twenty-two UK and American African diasporic artists in this year’s 2024 National Portrait Gallery programme; The Times is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure. The exhibition has three theme sections: Marshall’s art pieces were part of the ‘The Persistence of History.’ His first exhibited canvas, Untitled (Mask Boy) 2014, is an astonishing painting of a boy holding a ritual West African mask, who happens to be looking at a mirror, gazing at himself in admiration. The multi-colored space has bright colors, including the boy’s green sweater, and his black ivory skin tone shares the story of the African American narrative and presence.
Immediately, an elderly white couple walks into the room; it’s quite a small space; turning my back to face the next painting, Untitled (Painter) 2009, quietly standing there, staring profoundly into the eyes of a portrait of an unamused painter. Overhear in their American accents reading over Marshall’s artist biography, in a low tone, a man’s voice whispers, “I’ve never seen an artist use black painting as a skin tone,” stunned by his dumbfound observation, stepped back and peered over again at the painting right in front of me. His words influenced me, and I marveled over the portrait, realizing Marshall had a genius approach to depicting Blackness and history through modern art. Marshall’s use of black acrylic as an ‘unnatural skin’ tone is so powerful, as if it has taken back Western colonialism art and recreated the narrative of art black culture. I stood firmly staring at the portrait of the black female painter in awe, wondering how it was possible to get such a dark tone to make it pop so effortlessly, practically glowing. Her hoop earrings, gold, and silver, symbolize femininity and cultural significance as part of African American heritage. The woman’s painter’s jacket wrapped around her, almost like a cloak, and Marshall’s color scheme is on the warmer side, with marigold, burgundy, and green earth tones.
The Black woman painter also appears to be painting a self-portrait, working on a painting-by-numbers composition. Her artist’s palette has a mixture of bright colors, displaying a different approach to painter’s appearance. The unfinished portrait “piece offers viewers alternatives for its completion.” It allows them to either omit bone black silhouetted woman painter from original art piece by changing her skin tone or include her as she appears presently in this portrait. In history, ‘Western pictorial tradition’ erased the existence of black people, making them invisible as servers, nothing more. Marshall’s contemporary black art, as he calls it, is “counter-archive.” It highlights the presence of African American culture, creating portraits that redefine what it means to be black in America.
The collective of black artists at this exhibition is an unforgettable experience; there is a cultural presence and modernism in black art, celebrating social triumphs.
