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A New Vision for
the Arts
February 6 – May 28,
2011
A new paradigm for envisioning broader participation and more open
inclusion of the visual arts has been set into place by the broadening of
the public landscape by the election of America’s 44th president, Barack
Obama. For artists, arts promoters and public viewers, this historic period
provides new opportunities to connect visual arts by African Americans with
mainstream America, and to encouraged integrative thinking in arts across
all genres. The theme "A New Vision for the Arts," serves as the
rubric for the King Tisdell Cottage’s visual arts
exhibits for 2011 to realize the potential for change in the arts in
powerful new, cutting edge presentations.
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February
6 – May 28, 2011
Above: Moses Train, Oil on Canvas
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Rik Freeman : The Chittlin
Circuit Review
The “Chittlin’ Circuit Review,” is a series of paintings
that Rik Freeman began in 1994, based on the
origin and roots of “Blues” music.
The exhibit will feature 20 or more oil on canvas works. While the focus of the series is the
“Blues,” the underlying objective is to portray the reality of
circumstances that birthed the musical genre, including but not limited to,
socio-political and cultural aspects of the African American lifestyle in
the Deep South, where the “Blues” was born. The overall content of this
series has a high level of artistic quality combined with scholarship of
African American and American culture and history during this pivotal time
frame in the country’s history. *Chittlin’ Circuit is a colloquial term used to define
the venues and routes, primarily in the Eastern and Southeastern U.S.,
where performers of African descent were able to travel and perform under
Jim Crow segregation. The term “chittlin' circuit” is derived from
a popular item which appears on many Southern soul food menus: chitterlings.
Artist Statement
As
a child in Athens, GA, and even now I have always liked a good story, but a
story based on reality. Either read or heard I’ve always been able to
visualize these stories. I would “overhear” grown folks conversations and
feel their emotions, read a book, listen to music, and there’s a movie
going on in my head. This fueled my artistic style as a narrative painter,
a storyteller, a Griot with a paintbrush.
“The
Chittlin Circuit Review” is a series based on
“Blues Music”, and the Blues is based on life’s stories. These paintings
are my visual interpretation of the early history of the Blues, with my
underlying objective being to portray the reality of the social and
political circumstances of African Americans in the Deep South, the land
and people that birthed and nurtured this music and culture. To show the
links of heritage from African call in response songs, to the slave, field,
and work “hollas”, gospel influences, and even to
the music of today. The Blues is the bridge between all this and more, and
the more I’ve worked on this series the more I have realized it’s not just
an artistic journey, but an anthropological study on a segment of American
history.
While this series is based on factual
times, events, and conditions, the paintings revolve around fictional characters,
principally “ Mud Paw Willie and the Dawg Gon Blues Band”. It is
through them we experience life in, around, and on the Chittlin
Circuit, (even before it was known as such) and how the music and culture
of a rural agrarian people migrated up the Mississippi River, and on train
tracks throughout America to the more urban industrialized cities and
factories of the north, mid-west, and the growing west. In realizing these stories I paint of the
Blues, I humbly and respectfully realize I paint stories of the Diaspora,
of culture, and of history.
Opening Reception and Artist Talk:
Sunday, February 6th - 3:00 - 5:00pm
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