News » New Paintings in the Access Tucson Gallery

When We Were/Not
new paintings by Elizabeth Burden
June 2 – July 26

Artist Reception
Saturday, June 7
7-9pm

(Please note that Access Tucson and its gallery will be closed for one week during this show, July 4 -12 for Independence Day, inventory and facility upgrades.)

Gallery Hours
Noon – 10pm
Monday, Wednesday – Saturday
closed Tuesdays and Sundays

Artist Statement

Not all in the world is beautiful, and not all of life is good. The true artist has no right to chose only the lovely spots and make us think that is life. He must bring the world before our eyes . . . He must tell the truth.
–Clarence Darrow

Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it. –Bertolt Brecht

Much of my current artmaking focuses on race; it is that simple and that complicated. Others have tried to make it about other things: the universality of suffering, the capriciousness of life, the resiliency of humanity. Even I have tried to frame it as being about other things: first and third world dynamics; dualities, dichotomies, displacements, and disparities; bearing witness.

The truth is that my work is about race, about being a black woman in the world. The festering wound, the not quite-healed scar, the damaged psyche, the unfinished discussion, and the barely-started dialogue that is black and white in America. The founding dialectic that has lead to the American dilemma.

Have these issues been explored by artists before? Of course. Every generation has had artists who have dealt with race. Just by being a Black artist, an artist who happens to be Black, or an artist who folks were surprised was Black, every generation of African American artists has addressed the issue of race/racism, either by directly confronting it or by seemingly ignoring it (for to not deal with it is to deal with it by omission). In doing my work, I am attempting to situate myself in the context of these other artists works, to perform my right of passage in dealing with the issues, and to find my unique place in the sun.

Many think we’ve had (and finished) the conversation about race in America; others feel it is a tired conversation that we have exhausted. Recent mainstream media stories about Baraka Obama and Jeremiah Wright prove that we have not, although the issue befuddles many whites and be-wearies many blacks.

With this exhibition, I continue my exploration of blackness (and by omission, whiteness) in America. The works consider six eras of American history; I define each era based on the predominant term used for people of African heritage during the period. Half of the works focus on “when we were (fill in the term)”, giving one view of racial dynamics during each period; the other half focus on “when we were not,” and present another view.

Elizabeth Burden
eburden@vozpopular.net