Based in Atlanta, with a BFA from Atlanta College of Art (1991), Bailey is known for mixed-media paintings and installations using found objects. The objects and materials he uses are usually steeped in rich, historical significance. Objects like tintypes of distant family members from the past, African figurines, old piano keys, and Georgia red clay are part of his typical repertoire. Many of his materials are found through a love of antiquing, developed under his mother’s influence. For many years he collected weathered objects as he has traveled to different parts of the country and when his grandmother gifted him some 400 tintypes from family albums shortly before he graduated from art school, there was a turning point in his work. Bailey uses these rich materials to address issues of history, memory and identity. Although his works speak to his own personal experience they also express something larger. Elements of his own story – personal, genetic, and related to place – are woven into larger narratives about the black diaspora. This work consists of found objects and materials brought together to form a montage: a weathered marine tarp with embroidered additions depicting constellations, regiment numbers for African American troops, and the Mason-Dixon line and nearby states, three rustic French grape-harvesting baskets filled with crushed white glass, and an antique wooden toy ship, on it a small African sculpture. The work presents an open ended narrative from which multiple readings are possible but none are definitive. What can we say about this collection of random objects? Does the proximity of these objects to one another alter their meaning? How does this arrangement speak to you? #VMFA #arteducation #RadcliffeBailey #AmericanArt #AfricanAmericanArt #MarianAnderson #sculpture #War Vessel, 2012 Radcliffe Bailey, American (born 1968) Tarp, thread, iron, vintage model ship, African sculpture, wicker basket, glass Pamela K. and William A. Royall Jr. Fund for 21st Century Art and National Endowment for the Arts Fund for American Art 2014.5 (at VMFA Virginia Museum of Fine Arts)
