“The Preservation of Us” final painting reveal! Read on where I give an analysis on the piece.
Core themes of this piece:
2. Black culture & experiences
-Gold: royalty & richness
-Red: death, blood, anger
-White: normally purity but deconstructed the meaning to represent the invasiveness of the colonization in our history
-Green: the earth, our garden of ancestors
There are painted flowers & real flowers in the painting. The meaning is to signify the life and death of our ancestors. By putting REAL flowers in the painting sprouting above the skulls, they may have passed on but they’re still part of the community, preserving Black culture. The flowers are intentional. The purple, blue and yellow to signify royalty and sorrow, hints of red to show the anger our people have felt and it’s timeless. The past, present and future of our community accumulates our emotions, our pain, our trauma, our beauty, growth. Forget-me-nots are associated with fidelity, remembrance of those who have passed, and love. I wanted them to be in this garden to emphasize we never forget our history, our traditions, the ancestors that are always present in our lives.
Skulls symbolize both life and death, or to show what once was, or to show parts of us that have died or been let go of. In this case, it is all the above. The skulls do represent our ancestors and the flowers blooming from them represent they built this land & continue to have an impact in our culture, traditions and memories, stories and much more. It’s to show an emphasis on roots. The relationship between preserving us and our culture is core to this.
The tree rings symbolize age, timeless and constantly evolving. It is connected to the botanical elements of the painting. The thumb prints show community, DNA, a wholeness, a collective of beauty, strength and connection. The red sun is a sense of unity. Planets orbit the sun & I suppose I think of it as WE orbit a center of our community. The center of us is up to each person’s interpretation, perhaps whatever the center of your world is. Whatever is crucial to YOU and your Black identity. I didn’t have a specific reason as to why I did a portrait but I associate the core power of our community being Black women. Black women always thriving and doing such amazing things in this world and for others. I wanted to show the beauty & power Black women have & give recognition. Preservation can be seen all around the piece. That’s what all of these symbols have in common. Preservation is crucial to our community and individual emotional & spiritual needs, preserving our heirlooms, our sacrifices, our gifts, hair, traditions, memories, our identities.
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