Women Heal through Rite and Ritual – Tawny Chatmon

Women Heal through Rite and Ritual

Lavett Ballard | Tawny Chatmon | Oletha DeVane | Shanequa Gay | Delita Martin | Elsa Muñoz | Renée Stout | exhibition page

Tawny Chatmon

It is my belief that our memories and experiences are directly responsible for who we become. What we are exposed to, what we read, the toys we play with as children, what we view… I attribute this thought to my deep-seated desire to make sure I’m sending a clear message (with my work) and that the message I am sending is “saying something” important; because if I believe we are shaped by our memories, as an artist, I must also believe that I too play a small part in shaping and shifting the views of anyone who comes in contact with my life’s work.

The primary theme that drives my art practice is celebrating the beauty of black childhood. I am devoted to creating portraits that are loosely inspired by works painted during the 15th-19th centuries with the specific intent of bringing to the forefront faces that were often under-celebrated in this style of work.

My camera remains my primary tool of communication, while my constant exploration of diverse ways of expression moves me to add several different layers using a variety of mediums. After a portrait session is complete, I typically digitally manipulate my subjects and unite them with other photographic components to achieve a work that is a new photographic expression. Often lending to them the eyes of someone their elder and more wise and almost always exaggerating their hair and features in a somewhat rebellious celebratory way (in doing so, I unapologetically honor traits and characteristics often deemed unsightly in Western culture). Thereafter, I may superimpose antique patterns and textures, vintage botanical and wildlife illustrations or hand drawn digital illustration. If I feel I am not yet complete, after each portrait is refined and printed, I may combine paint and gilding adding ornamental elements inspired by 19th century artworks.

It is my hope that with each theme I explore and with each portrait I create, something vital is etched into the memory of the viewer.

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Biography | Resume

Biography
My work and life have gone through many phases that have lead me to create the work I do today. I attribute this evolution to three major shifts: The decision to no longer pursue a career in dramatic arts, the birth of my first child and the death of my father.

Before becoming a photographer, I was a performer. My early childhood consisted of traveling from continent to continent as an “army brat”. After settling in the United States, my pre-teens to early adulthood was spent performing in plays put on by my aunts theater company, dinner theatre programs, school plays, attending acting workshops and the like. After receiving a small scholarship for dramatic arts in High School I enrolled in a dramatic arts conservatory, was cast in an off Broadway play, had been an extra in just enough films making me eligible to receive my Union card…and out of nowhere, I quit. Having no idea what to do next or how I would creatively earn a living, I turned to photography.

At 19, I was gifted my first camera. Photography was not new to me although considering it a career choice was. I floated through ages 20-24 self-teaching, exploring with various genres of photography and using my camera as a means of making a living. During this time, I also began learning Photoshop and taking on graphic and web design jobs.

Photographing children was something that never crossed my mind before becoming a mother. After the birth of my son, my life organically became about documenting his life. Ages 25-28 were almost exclusively dedicated to my joy of photographing him. This expanded to documenting these moments for family members which then lead to offering to do so for other families as well.

My first experience working in commercial photography came after being recommended by a client for a local commercial job. Afterwards, I began to seriously pursue other opportunities shooting for (or providing photographs for) YMCA, Until There’s a Cure and NEA and publications such as Vogue Bambini, Parenting Magazine & Baby Talk Magazine.

In 2010, my outlook and relationship with my camera changed when I began photographing my father’s battle with cancer. What we thought would be a testimony of his victory turned out to be my documentation of cancer taking his life. Not much felt worthy of picking up my camera for after that. With his passing, something in me died, but something else awakened. I began to stop solely looking to my camera as a means of making a living and began using it as a way to communicate my joy, my pain & my frustration.

Now 39, I look to photography less as a career or a job and more as a calling. My work is ever-changing and constantly evolving as am I. The portraits I create today are almost always inspired by my children and usually of someone that I am close to in some way (my daughters, son, God daughter, a relative, or a model that I’ve worked with in the past) and is driven by my desire contribute something important to a world that I want my children to thrive in.

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Artist’s Short

 
One to Watch: Tawny Chatmon

Women Heal through Rite and Ritual – Lavett Ballard

Women Heal through Rite and Ritual

Lavett Ballard | Tawny Chatmon | Oletha DeVane | Shanequa Gay | Delita Martin | Elsa Muñoz | Renée Stout | exhibition page

Lavett Ballard

As a child, I would spend summers at our family farm in Virginia. This ritual of traveling from the North to the South all the while being fed the stories of how we grew to gain the property and how the “Big House” I would be staying in was built by my three times great grandmother’s sons. The house was a step back in time prior, to the flight of the Great Migration which sent masses toward opportunities in the North. Through this experience, I was drawn to the history of the log cabin that held generations of my family in a home surrounded by photographs that chronicled our history.

This experience helped to foster an interest in visual storytelling while fusing the wood that surrounded me during the summers of my youth. My strong affinity for imagery and history has led me to focus on creating a visual lexicon of the African American experience and self-identity.

I’ve spent hours compiling a photographic catalog of female and male images that cover the African diaspora over different geographic areas and historic periods. The prints are collaged, painted, destroyed and reborn to create a re-imagined visual narrative. I use reclaimed large and small aged wood fences, as a symbolic reference to how fences keep people in and out, just as racial and gender identities can act as barriers in our socially. These fences are then arranged as ‘altars’ as icons to honor the strength and determination of each subject.

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Biography | Resume

Biography
Lavett Ballard is an Artist, Art historian, Curator, and Author. She hold a dual Bachelor’s in Studio Art and Art History with a minor in Museum Studies from Rutgers University, and an MFA in Studio Art from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

Ballard’s art has been included in literary, film and theatre productions and museum, galleries, public, private institutions and exhibitions nationwide. Among other accolades I have been named by Black Art in America as one of the Top 10 Female Emerging Artists to Collect and has been nominated for the inaugural Art for Social change Pew Foundation funded Residency among other distinguished honors. Her work has been acquired by prominent collections such as the Smithsonian, the African American Museum of Philadelphia, the T. Thomas Fortune Cultural Center, Weeksville Heritage Center, the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection and the Grant and Tamia Hill private Collections.

Ballard views her art as a re-imagined visual narrative of people of African descent. Her use of imagery reflects social issues affecting primarily Black women’s stories within a historical context. Her current body of work uses collaged photos adorned with paint, oil pastels, and metallic foils. These photos are deconstructed and layered on reclaimed large and small aged wood fences. The use of fences is a symbolic reference to how fences keep people in and out, just as racial and gender identities can do the same socially. The fusion of wood and photography offers artwork that both explores her southern roots, visually speaks volumes to continuing themes within her community.

Women Heal through Rite and Ritual

Women Heal through Rite and Ritual – Online Exhibition

Artists | Artwork | Videos | Exhibition Catalog

Women Heal through Rite and Ritual draws from the imaginative narratives of artists Lavett Ballard, Tawny Chatmon, Oletha DeVane, Shanequa Gay, Delita Martin, Elsa Muñoz and Renée Stout who look to non-Western traditions for inspiration in exploring a woman’s role as nurturer of family and community; and as traditional healer, conjure woman, and clairvoyant who dwells in both the physical and spiritual realms.

Conveyed through visceral imagery—manifested in paintings, prints, photography, and sanctuaries are the artists’ cultural, social, spiritual, and political commentaries on the rites of womanhood, and an intimate and compelling testament to the essence of the divine feminine and self.

As giver of life, custodian of traditional African religion and customs, preserver of culture, counselor, and psychologist, and at times, the conduit between two worlds, Women Heal through Rite and Ritual celebrates and reclaims a woman’s power and place in the natural and supernatural worlds.

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As the COVID-19 (coronavirus) continues to permeate every aspect of our lives, we recognize the need to take preventative measures in order to ensure the safety of our staff, our artists, and our patrons. While the gallery remains closed, we offer an online version of our current exhibition Women Heal through Rite and Ritual. We are planning to hold the opening reception and artist talk in the future. However, because of the fluidity of the situation, no date will be announced at this time. Until then enjoy the online exhibition!