I believe there is beauty in hearing the voices of people who haven't been heard.
我相信有一种美, 可以听到那些未曾 被人们听见的声音。
["Drawing the Blinds," 2014]
[《拉上窗帘》,2014 ]
["The Jerome Project (Asphalt and Chalk) III," 2014]
[《杰罗姆计划(沥青与白垩》III,2014 ]
[Beneath an Unforgiving Sun (From A Tropical Space)," 2020]
[《无情太阳下(来自热带空间)》,2020 ]
That's a complex idea, because the things that must be said are not always lovely. But somehow, if they're reflective of truth, I think, fundamentally, that makes them beautiful.
这是个复杂的想法, 因为不是所有 必须说出来的事物都是美好的。 但出于某种原因, 如果它们反映了真相, 我基本上就会认为 它们是美丽的。
(Music)
(音乐)
There's the aesthetic beauty of the work that in some cases functions as more of a Trojan horse. It allows one to open their hearts to difficult conversations. Maybe you feel attracted to the beauty, and while compelled by the technique, the color, the form or composition, maybe the difficult conversation sneaks up.
作品的艺术审美 在某些情况下 就像是特洛伊木马。 它允许人们敞开心扉, 接受艰难的对话。 也许你会被它的美丽所吸引, 同时也因技巧、 色彩、 形式或是构图而感到压迫, 艰难的对话也许就悄然进行了。
["Billy Lee and Ona Judge Portraits in Tar," 2016]
[《比利·李和奥妮·贾奇的 焦油沥青画像》,2016 ]
I really taught myself how to paint by spending time at museums and looking at the people that -- the artists, rather -- that I was told were the masters.
我自学画画的方式 是花时间在博物馆里, 欣赏人们—— 或者说艺术家—— 别人所称颂的大师。
Looking at the Rembrandts ["The Night Watch"],
我看着伦勃朗的 [《守夜》]、
Renoir ["Luncheon of the Boating Party"],
雷诺阿的 [《船上的午宴》]、
Manet ["Luncheon on the Grass"],
莫奈的 [《草地上的午宴》],
it becomes quite obvious that if I'm going to learn how to paint a self-portrait by studying those people, I'm going to be challenged when it comes to mixing my skin or mixing the skin of those people in my family. There's literally formulas written down historically to tell me how to paint white skin -- what colors I should use for the underpainting, what colors I should use for the impasto highlights -- that doesn't really exist for dark skin. It's not a thing.
很显然, 如果我通过研究这些人 来学习如何画肖像, 我将会面对挑战, 尤其是调出我的肤色 或是我家人的肤色。 历史上存在一定的公式 告诉我们如何 画白人的肤色—— 我该用什么颜色作为底色, 又该用哪些颜色作为 厚涂强调部分—— 然而针对黑皮肤的公式 是不存在的。 它不存在。
It's not a thing because the reality is, our skin wasn't considered beautiful. The picture, the world that is represented in the history of paintings doesn't reflect me. It doesn't reflect the things that I value in that way, and that's the conflict that I struggle with so frequently, is, I love the technique of these paintings, I have learned from the technique of these paintings, and yet I know that they have no concern for me.
不存在的原因是, 现实中,人们认为 我们的肤色不够美。 绘画历史中所呈现的世界 并不是我的写照, 它没有反映出我重视的价值, 这也是我经常挣扎面对的矛盾。 因为我热爱绘画的技巧, 我也从这些绘画技巧中学习, 然而我知道它们并不在乎我。
And so there are so many of us who are amending this history in order to simply say we were there. Because you couldn't see doesn't mean we weren't there. We have been there. We have been here. We've continued to be seen as not beautiful, but we are, and we are here. So many of the things that I make end up as maybe futile attempts to reinforce that idea.
很多人都在修改这段历史, 仅仅为了证明我们曾经的存在。 因为你看不见, 不代表我们不存在。 我们一直都在那里。 我们一直都在。 我们一直被视为是不美的, 但我们是美丽的, 且我们一直都在。 我的许多作品都让我觉得, 也许,我所尝试加强的 观念终究是枉然的。
["Drawing the Blinds," 2014]
[《拉上窗帘》,2014 ]
["Seeing Through Time," 2018]
[《看越时间》,2014 ]
Even though I've had the Western training, my eye is still drawn to the folks who look like me. And so sometimes in my work, I have used strategies like whiting out the rest of the composition in order to focus on the character who may go unseen otherwise. I have cut out other figures from the painting, one, to either emphasize their absence, or two, to get you to focus on the other folks in the composition.
即使我受过西方绘画的训练, 我眼中的人们始终 有着与我相像的影子。 有时,在我的画作中, 我运用策略, 例如将构图的其余部分抹白, 让焦点能落在那些 被人忽视的角色上。 我也曾将其他人物 从画作中割出, 第一,是为了 凸显他们的缺席, 其次,是为了专注 构图中的其他人物。
["Intravenous (From a Tropical Space)," 2020]
[《静脉内(来自热带空间)》,2020 ]
So "The Jerome Project," aesthetically, draws on hundreds of years of religious icon painting,
从艺术角度而言, 《杰若米计划》 描绘了象征着百年历史的 宗教肖像绘画。
["The Jerome Project (My Loss)," 2014]
[《杰罗姆计划(我的损失)》,2014 ]
a kind of aesthetic structure that was reserved for the church, reserved for saints.
一种为基督教堂设计的美学作品, 是圣人专用的。
["Madonna and Child"]
[《圣母子》]
["Leaf from a Greek Psalter and New Testament"]
[《希腊诗篇与新约中的一页》]
["Christ Pantocrator"]
[《基督全能的主》]
It's a project that is an exploration of the criminal justice system, not asking the question "Are these people innocent or guilty?", but more, "Is this the way that we should deal with our citizens?" I started a body of work, because after being separated from my father for almost 15 years, I reconnected with my father, and ... I really didn't know how to make a place for him in my life. As with most things I don't understand, I work them out in the studio. And so I just started making these portraits of mug shots, starting because I did a Google search for my father, just wondering what had happened over this 15-year period. Where had he gone? And I found his mug shot, which of course was of no surprise. But I found in that first search 97 other Black men with exactly the same first and last name, and I found their mug shots, and that -- that was a surprise. And not knowing what to do, I just started painting them.
这些都是探讨 刑事司法系统的项目, 不是为了问:“这些人 是无辜的还是有罪的?”, 而是,“我们应该用这样的方式 对待我们的公民吗?” 我开始创作一系列作品, 因为在我与父亲分开的 十五年后, 我重新与他建立了联系,然而…… 我真的不知道如何 在我的生活中腾出他的位置。 这和我不理解的事物一样, 我会在工作室中 解决这些问题。 我刚开始画这些监照, 是因为我用谷歌搜索了 我父亲的信息, 只是想知道这十五年来 发生了什么事情。 他在哪儿? 然后我找到他的监照, 当然我并不意外。 但在第一次搜索中,我找到了 同名同姓的另外 97 名黑人, 这让我感到很意外。 我完全不知道该从何下手, 所以我就开始画他们。
Initially, the tar was a formula that allowed me to figure out how much of these men's life had been lost to incarceration. But I gave up that, and the tar became far more symbolic as I continued, because what I realized is the amount of time that you spend incarcerated is just the beginning of how long it's going to impact the rest of your life.
起先,沥青作为一种配方, 让我理解了失去自由的监狱人生。 后来我放弃了, 随着经验的累积, 沥青在我的画笔下 变得更具代表性, 因为我意识到 监禁的时间只是个开端, 它还会对你的余生 造成长时间的冲击。
So in terms of beauty within that context, I know from my friend's family who have been incarcerated, who are currently incarcerated, folks want to be remembered. Folks want to be seen. We put people away for a long time, in some cases, for that one worst thing that they've done. So to a degree, it's a way of just saying, "I see you. We see you." And I think that, as a gesture, is beautiful.
就以这种情境下的美而言, 我从曾经或 正处于监禁的 朋友的家人那里得知, 他们想要被人记得。 他们想要被人看见。 当我们把人们长时间关起来, 在某些例子中, 只因他们做过一件错事。 在某种程度上, 这种方式传达了一个信息, “我看见你了。” “我们看见你了。” 我觉得这种示意 就是美丽的。
In the painting "Behind the Myth of Benevolence," there's almost this curtain of Thomas Jefferson painted and pulled back to reveal a Black woman who's hidden. This Black woman is at once Sally Hemings, but she's also every other Black woman who was on that plantation Monticello and all the rest of them. The one thing we do know about Thomas Jefferson is that he believed in liberty, maybe more strongly than anyone who's ever written about it. And if we know that to be true, if we believe that to be true, then the only benevolent thing to do in that context would be to extend that liberty. And so in this body of work, I use two separate paintings that are forced together on top of one another to emphasize this tumultuous relationship between Black and white in these compositions. And so, that -- that contradiction, that devastating reality that's always behind the curtain, what is happening in race relations in this country -- that's what this painting is about.
在《善行迷失的背后》中, 托马斯·杰斐逊的 帷幔似乎被拉开, 揭示了藏在其背后的黑人女子。 这名黑人女子是 莎丽·海明斯 (Sally Hemings), 她也代表着由托马斯·杰斐逊拥有的 蒙蒂塞洛种植园(plantation Monticello)的 每一位黑人女子, 更代表着所有的黑人女子。 关于托马斯·杰斐逊, 我们很肯定的一件事是: 他相信自由, 也许他的信念比任何人 所撰写的更加强烈。 如果我们知道那是真的, 如果我们相信那是真的, 在这一情境下, 我们所能做的善行 便是将自由延续下去。 所以在这一系列的作品中, 我将两幅不同的画作 强行重叠并结合在一起。 在构图中强调黑与白之间的 混乱关系。 所以,那种—— 那种矛盾 那种令人心力交瘁的现实 总是藏在帷幔背后, 也反映了这个国家 复杂的种族关系—— 这正是这幅画作的意图。
The painting is called "Another Fight for Remembrance." The title speaks to repetition. The title speaks to the kind of violence against Black people by the police that has happened and continues to happen, and we are now seeing it happen again. The painting is sort of editorialized as a painting about Ferguson. It's not not about Ferguson, but it's also not not about Detroit, it's also not not about Minneapolis.
这幅画的名字叫做 《为了纪念再打一战》, 从主题可以看出其重复性。 这个主题描述的是警方 对于黑人的 暴力行为, 这种暴力曾经发生过, 也还在持续发生, 现在,我们看到它再次发生了。 这幅画被当作一幅 关于弗格森的画作来编辑。 它并非与弗格森无关, 但它也并非与底特律无关, 它也亦非与明尼阿波利斯无关。
The painting was started because on a trip to New York to see some of my own art with my brother, as we spent hours walking in and out of galleries, we ended the day by being stopped by an undercover police car in the middle of the street. These two police officers with their hands on their gun told us to stop. They put us up against the wall. They accused me of stealing art out of a gallery space where I was actually exhibiting art. And as they stood there with their hands on their weapons, I asked the police officer what was different about my citizenship than that of all of the other people who were not being disturbed in that moment. He informed me that they had been following us for two hours and that they had been getting complaints about Black men, two Black men walking in and out of galleries. That painting is about the reality, that it's not a question of if this is going to happen again, it's a question of when.
这幅画作的灵感来源于 我与兄弟的一次纽约之行, 在那里有我自己的艺术作品。 我们耗费数小时 进进出出画廊, 结果在忙碌的一天结束后, 我们在街上被卧底警察车拦下。 这两位警员手持枪械, 要求我们停下, 双手扶着墙壁。 他们指控我在 画廊偷窃艺术品, 然而那个画廊展览的 是我自己的艺术作品。 当警员站着,手持枪械时, 我问警员, 我的公民资格 和此刻不被警员打扰的人们 有什么不同? 他告诉我,他们已经 跟踪我们两小时了, 且他们一直接到 有关黑人的投诉—— 有两个黑人不断进出画廊。 这幅画作呈现的事实是, 问题不在于 这种情况是否会再次发生, 而是何时会再发生。
This most recent body of work is called "From a Tropical Space." This series of paintings is about Black mothers. The series of paintings takes place in a supersaturated, maybe surrealist world, not that far from the one we live in. But in this world, the children of these Black women are disappearing. What this work is really about is the trauma, the things that Black women and women of color in particular in our community have to struggle through in order to set their kids out on the path of life.
这是最新的一系列作品 《来自热带空间》。 这一系列的画作主题 是黑人母亲, 基本都诞生于 一个过度饱和,也许有点 超现实主义的世界, 与我们生活的世界 相差不远。 但在这个世界中, 黑人女性的孩子们 正在消失。 这件作品的重点是创伤, 表达出黑人女性 和我们社会上的 有色女性人种 必须要不断挣扎, 才能让孩子的人生道路走上正轨。
What's encouraging for me is that this practice of mine has given me the opportunity to work with young people in my community. I'm quite certain the answers are not in me, but if I'm hopeful at all, it's that they may be in them.
不断激励我的是, 这样的做法 让我有机会 与我族群中的年轻人合作。 我很肯定, 答案不在我身上, 但我时时保持乐观, 答案可能在他们身上。
"NXTHVN" is a project that started about five years ago. NXTHVN is a 40,000-square-foot arts incubator in the heart of the Dixwell neighborhood in New Haven, Connecticut. This is a predominantly Black and Brown neighborhood. It is a neighborhood that has the history of jazz at every corner. Our neighborhood, in many ways, has been disinvested in. Schools are struggling to really prepare our population for the futures ahead of them. I know that creativity is an essential asset. It takes creativity to be able to imagine a future that is so different than the one that is before you. And so every artist in our program has a high school studio assistant: there's a high school student that comes from the city of New Haven who works with them and learns their craft, learns their practice. And so we've seen the ways in which pointing folks at the power of creativity can change them.
“NXTHVN” 是大约五年前 开始的一个计划。 它是个四万平方英尺的艺术孵化地, 坐落于康乃狄格州纽黑文市 狄克斯威尔社区的中心。 这里主要是黑色和 褐色人种的聚居区。 这里的每一个角落 都有爵士乐历史的痕迹。 在许多方面,这个社区 都没有得到应有的资金支持, 校方非常辛苦地办校 才能让居民们 为未来做好准备。 我知道创意是 必不可少的资产。 要有创意 才能够想象出 一个不同于眼前的未来。 所以这个计划的每位艺术家 都配有一位高中艺术工作室助理: 有一位来自纽黑文的高中生 与他们合作,学习他们的手艺, 学习他们的做法。 我们见识到 让人们了解创意的力量 如何能够改变他们。
Beauty is complicated, because of how we define it. I think that beauty and truth are intertwined somehow. There is something beautiful in truth-telling. That is: that as an act, truth-telling and the myriad ways it manifests -- there's beauty in that.
美是复杂的, 因为我们对它有着不同的定义。 我觉得美和真相 往往是交织在一起的。 陈述真相 就蕴含着 一种美。 也就是说: 陈述真相的行为 以及五花八门的呈现方式—— 就体现了美的存在。