By Renee Diaz and Hunter Bos, The Seattle Medium
Upon entering the gallery for “A Warning Resting in the Distance,” audiences are offered pamphlets to guide them through the exhibition. The first stop is a large paneled wall of color and text in the center of the gallery, and the text begins with a question: “What’s the difference between shit talking and a warning?”
This wall, along with the two behind it and the four walls of a small room around the corner, has all been painted dusty rose, a color inspired by the title of the Stephen King novel “Rose Madder,” wherein the protagonist leaves an abusive relationship by escaping into a painting, according to artist Katherine Simóne Reynolds.
Reynolds’ exhibition is being hosted by the Jacob Lawrence Gallery and The Black Embodiments Studio (BES). It is being shown at the gallery located on the University of Washington campus until Saturday, Dec. 11. The work addresses themes of perception, information exchange, and Black femininity through various mediums such as videography, photography, sculpture, artifacts, and sound.
Reynolds attributes her understanding of staging and the relationship between art and audience to her training in ballet. For this exhibition, she worked to ensure the gallery would be framed as more than just artwork, but as a guided path that encouraged audience members to reflect on their own experiences.
To ensure a close relationship between the audience’s perception and her own, Reynolds used a variety of mediums to call attention to how Black women are racialized—illuminating the uneasiness in the unfixed relationship between “shit-talking” and a warning.
This warning is a key focus of the exhibition. As audience members explore the gallery, they find images of Black women alone, subject to surveillance. Reynolds draws attention to the impulse to give these women a warning or “talk shit” about their position, particularly concerning the preconceived expectations of what we presume them to be doing or facing based on racial and gender stereotypes.
“It’s a very specific exhibition toward Black femininity, but it’s not necessarily just for Black women,” Reynolds said. “It can’t be. To actually think about the relationship to the gaze and turning away from the gaze, it can’t be just towards Black women. So I don’t really know who exactly the audience is, but it’s for whoever shows up and wants to have the conversation.”
One piece, a photograph, captures a woman with long hair standing alone in a store. Her back is turned, so her hair stands prominently as a feature while at the same time concealing her body. This piece showcases the desire for Black women to hide from surveillance while sometimes paradoxically enhancing their features in a process that Reynolds describes as “overhealing.”
The wigs signify the process of overhealing for Black women. According to the artist, they shroud their visibility but at the same time magnify their presence. Scars repair and protect the skin but can go too far in the process of healing, resulting in keloids, another result in overhealing, according to the artist.
When asked about the woman portrayed in the projected video pieces, Reynolds said her identity plays directly into the idea of perception intended for the exhibition. The woman depicted throughout the exhibit is Reynolds, though people may not be able to make that out.
“That’s the thing about being a Black woman is that you can even just be in plain sight and people are, like, ‘Yeah, that person over there,’ or just assuming that [the person is] this other woman and you are the woman that people are talking about.”
Created in memory of 20th-century artist, civil rights activist, and professor Jacob Lawrence, the Jacob Lawrence Gallery’s mission is to promote the idea of education first, then social justice, then experimentation.
The gallery hosts 12 to 14 exhibitions every year, eight of which are reserved for undergraduate seniors and graduate students. The remaining exhibitions include a Jacob Lawrence legacy residency, a graduate student curatorial fellowship, and exhibitions curated by the gallery’s resident program. The Black Embodiments Studio (BES) was responsible for curating “A Warning Resting in the Distance.”
BES is an arts creative-writing incubator for writing on contemporary Black art. Annually BES publishes a journal called “A Year in Black Art” in which BES writers explore different Black artists from across Seattle.
“The goal is to provide the most visibility that we can,” said Emily Zimmerman, Director + Curator at the Jacob Lawrence Gallery. “And to collaborate in the most rigorous ways possible with on-campus partners that are doing really good social justice work.”
The gallery offers many opportunities for students to get involved with contemporary artists, especially an internship program in which students work directly with artists to install their exhibitions.
“Education comes into the shows that aren’t student shows, too,” Zimmerman said. “In our program, we find a balance between offering professional opportunities for students to show their work, and then also to learn from professional artists working nationally and internationally.”
For the past two years, the gallery has been collaborating with BES to incorporate the work of contemporary Black artists into the gallery’s remaining exhibition slots, Zimmerman explained.
Reynolds is graduating with an MFA from Northwestern University and first got involved with the Jacob Lawrence Gallery through her friend Dr. Jasmine Mahmoud, assistant professor of theatre history and performance studies at UW. Reynolds wanted to return to Seattle because of her strong emotional attachment to the city. After contacting Mahmoud, she was put in touch with Dr. Kemi Adeyemi, director of BES and assistant professor of gender, women & sexuality studies at UW.
Adeyemi started BES in 2017 to meet Black artists, build connections, and strengthen discourse around contemporary Black art and artists in Seattle.
“If arts writers do not have the skills to cover black artists, or if they are not interested in covering black artists, we have to cultivate those writers who are,” Adeyemi wrote in an email. “It’s not very complicated to develop rich writing about black artists, and it’s not very hard to find people who are interested in doing so. It’s harder, though, to get a support structure for both. That’s where BES comes in.”
The BES hosts an arts writing incubator, a program built to connect Black artists in the area with arts writers. This allows arts writers, Adeyemi explained, the time to interact with Black artists’ work and develop their writing capabilities before eventually publishing in a variety of writing outlets.
“I operate from the assumption that art writing is absolutely critical to building this discourse: that people writing about and in conversation with black art(ists) helps shape the conversation around the themes, methods, materials, and practices that black artists deploy,” Adeyemi wrote.
A Warning Resting in the Distance will remain on display at the Jacob Lawrence Gallery until Dec. 11. The gallery is open to the public Tuesday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and by appointment on Fridays and Saturdays.
