Betye Saar
Illuminating concepts of identity, race, gender, and memory, Colliding Visions: Contemporary California Collage features 25 works by five Southern California artists – Chelle Barbour, Genevieve Gaignard, Patricia Jessup-Woodlin, Betye Saar, and Brenna Youngblood – whose unique viewpoints have been assembled as a visual conversation between the museum walls. Representing a range of styles in contemporary collage, all five artists use a distinctive combination of photography, cut paper, and found objects.
Colliding Visions: Contemporary California Collage includes Chelle Barbour’s signature Afro-futurist collages of black women, while Patricia Jessup-Woodlin’s compositions focus on women in dreamlike banners that evoke a romantic past. Brenna Youngblood’s large boldly painted canvases incorporate televisions, microwaves, dogs and bricks but no human figures, creating tableaus of eerie domesticity. Genevieve Gaignard’s works use the iconic figure of “Aunt Jemima” as a counterpoint to images of young glamorous women and sensuous flowers. Iconic assemblage artist Betye Saar has incorporated many of the same techniques as the other artists over her long career; however, she often includes family photos and personal mementoes.
Image: Brenna Youngblood, DAD, 2016, acrylic, paper, photographs and wallpaper on canvas, 72 x 60 x 1.5 in (182.9 x 152.4 x 3.8 cm)
