Ancestral Realms, Blossoms and Dominions Within
Series, Mixed Media, 2023
Ancestral Realms, Blossoms, and Dominions Within
As I continue my search for representations of self, my beliefs, and how I strive to participate within this society, and this series, Ancestral Realms, Blossoms, and Dominions Within represents an ongoing conversation with my ancestors, my environment, and the energies that sustain us. My ancestors have charged me to find ways to visually convey the parallels between human beings and our natural environment, and to evoke our similar cellular construction, and our similar needs to be nourished and maintained. Thus, the name of this series conveys the considerations given to ensuring my ancestors' messages are clear and convey their intent.
Ancestral Realms refer to how we can listen to and engage with those who come before us. I choose the word blossom to convey both meanings of the word: first, the static display of an actual flower or grouping of flowers, and second, a state or time during which flowering or growth is inevitable. These nuances of meaning also correlate with our human potential for inner growth and, as we develop, the potential to become more aligned with each other, with animals, our environments, nature, and the elements. The phrase dominions within references the journeyand layers of learning to love, listen and learn oneself.
I have long favored landscapes since my mother introduced me to Impressionism as a child and then in high school as I learned about the Hudson River School art movement. Specifically, the artwork of Robert S. Duncanson, a 19th-century landscapist of European and African American heritage, inspired me. As a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) student at Howard University, my interest was reinforced by the artwork of Aaron Douglass and Romare Bearden. Specifically Bearden's Caribbean landscape collages created on the island of St. Martin.
Through these artworks, I am exploring abstraction, utopian sceneries, and visual manifestations of my ancestry through a mixed-media a surrealist lens. I impose images of my family members in the midst of ceremonial celebrations—likely preparing for festivities of carnival—against the abstracted faux-formulated environments to evoke a sense of the rational, physical plane we exist in juxtaposed the dream state we slumber, recalibrate, and heal within.
This series comprises six artworks, whose titles and dimensions are below. The left side of five of the six artworks features a paper gradient that my brother Alanzo Robles-Gordon, also an artist, created. Alternatively, on the right, I have incorporated an expanded visual landscape. Lastly, although I acknowledge, cherish, and respect traditional representations of landscapes, it is my nature to nudge against the conventional. Hence, through these collages, I triangulate three of my favorite conceptual and personal influences: Syfy, Fantasy, and Afro-Futurism, "a way of looking at the future and alternate realities through a Black cultural lens."
While I still allow myself to languish within a mist of botanical landscapes, (as did in my previous art series Remnants: a visual journey of memory and renewal) in creating these artworks, I held the concepts of place-making, spiritual grounds, home, and ancestral ties in mind. The photographic figuration centrally positioned throughout these artworks is from my rummaging of my grandmother's, great aunt, and great uncle's photo albums. In my search for remnants of the past, I aim to inspire ripples of understanding in my present.
The Artwork:
1. Reinos Ancestrales, Mis Flores y Los Dominios Interiores (Ancestral Realms, My Blossoms and the Dominions Within), Mixed Media on Canvas, July 2023
2. Gradiente de Violeta: todo lo que ella valora y quía su existencia. (Gradient of Violet: All that she stands, dances and exists upon, Mixed Media on Wood, July 2023
3. Gradiente de vara de oro pálido a violeta africana: en el jardín/puertas de mis antepasados
(Pale Goldenrod to African Violet Gradient: At my Ancestors Garden/Gates)
At the foot of my ancestor’s garden/portal
4. Gradiente de rubor rosa a rosa frambuesa: Mi energía guerrera (Blush Rose to Raspberry Rose Gradient: My Warrior Energy)
5. Degradado de verde té a verde militar: lo que producen los jardines en mi dominio
(Tea Green to Army Green Gradient: What the Gardens in My Dominion Brings Forth)
6. A Glimpse behind the vail, Mixed Media on Canvas, July 2023
Currently on view at:
Date: July 21 - October 8, 2023
Location: Knowhere Art Gallery
Martha’s Vineyard
91 Dukes County Avenue
PO Box 724
Oak Bluffs, MA 02557
Click to view: https://knowhereart.com/show/knowhere-art-llc-fibers-of-my-soul