Black History Month 2011: Portrayal Of Black Women Progresses Through Artist's Career
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As NY1 continues its celebration of Black History Month, we meet one artist whose portrayal of African-American women changed over her extensive career. NY1's Shazia Khan filed the following report.The year was 1966 when then 18-year-old Dindga McCannon hauled her paintings to the Village Outdoor Art Show. It was one of her first events as an artist, but far from her last.
Over her more than 40 year career she exhibited at the Smithsonian, lectured abroad, and has been featured in a number of art books. Inside her studio in Washington Heights, McCannon continues to work.
At the time, McCannon, who was born and raised in Harlem, was a member of the Wesui Artist Collective, a group of mostly black male artists from Harlem and Brooklyn who celebrated African art and culture in their work.
"Many of the other artists were trained I guess in the traditional manner and they kind of left out African art completely," said McCannon. "And so we began to focus on art from Africa and making art that looked like us. Because every culture when they create art the art looks like they do but with us it didn't look it, it was very Eurocentric."
Seeing the underrepresentation of black female artists in the art world, in 1971, McCannon along with fellow Harlem artist Faith Ringgold and others, co founded "Where We At," a black women arts collective. In her paintings, quilts, children's books and other pieces, black women became a central part of McCannon's body of work.
"Usually when you saw an image of a black woman she was either carrying a baby or being a maid or something that really didn't reveal the full scope of us as human beings," said McCannon. "We do everything just like everybody else and I just wanted to discuss that with the world."
And while black women remain a primary part of her work, McCannon says how she portrays them has changed in recent years.
"When I first started out most of my figures were dressed in African garb, they were extremely Afrocentric. Now I can do women who have different images. Some people straighten their hair, some people have long hair, some people have pieces. But at least it's a beautiful black woman no matter what's on her head," McCannon said.
You can catch a retrospective of McCannon's work at this year's Harlem Fine Arts Show. It opens this Friday and runs through the weekend.