WORK IN PROGRESS: I’m currently working on a new series titled “The Least of These: A Painter’s Reimagination of Dorothea Lange’s Photography” where I’m reinterpreting @dorothealange’s photography during the Great Depression and considering how her photographs fit in a modern-day context. In my paintings, I take images of subjects in urban contexts and puts them in the place of Dorothea Lange’s subjects. My subjects are people of my culture. They also represent the poor and needy, the hungry and sick, the falsely imprisoned and wrongly accused. They are in effect people who Jesus referred to as “the least of these,” hence the title of the series. This exploration of the similarities between the Great Depression and today lends itself to many critical conversations about the current economic climate and how the pandemic continues to negatively affect people of color, immigrants, the poor, and the working class. The pandemic negatively affects us all on some level, but it negatively affects people of color, the poor and the working class far worse. It displaces them more. It calls for their sacrifices more. And it starves them of resources more. “The Least of These” will be on view this August at our NY location in SoHo and will invite the public to examine how much corporate greed has contributed to what likely will lead to yet another market crash, perhaps one reminiscent of the Great Depression. I will have some ten oil paintings in the series and the vast majority of them will be 60 x 72 inches. The featured painting in this post is titled “Burden In My Hand“ and it reimagines Dorothea Lange’s iconic 1940 photograph of a Migratory Cotton Picker in Eloy Arizona. I’m excited to continue sharing the progress of this series and look forward to unveil all the works once complete! Stay tuned! #jaemelo #newyorkartist #artistofinstagram #nycpainters #creativeart #portraitpainting #iconicportraits #afrolatino #dominican #afrolatinoartist #realism #modernart #nycportraitartist #paintingartist #graffitiartist #dreadlockstyle #kadirnelson #kehindewiley #blackart #gagosiangallery #thedeancollection #tallerjaemelo #moma #DorotheaLange (at Soho, Manhattan) https://www.instagram.com/p/CL9lvWZHvis/?igshid=1vlo34ujb2uzo
