Ima: Real Estate Mogul (Harlem Women's Series)

2021 - Painting (Painting)

35.56 x 27.94 x 5.08 cm

Dindga McCannon

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Dindga McCannon created the radiant portrait Ima: Real Estate Mogul from the Harlem Women’s Series by first stitching material together with a sewing machine and then using more traditional painting techniques to render a portrait of Ima, a woman from Harlem who was a real estate developer from the 20th century. As with other works in the series, McCannon completes the portrait by hand beading a personal and cultural iconography of signs and symbols around the edges of the canvas. The work is spiritual in the sense that it has an energy that comes from its directness and from the human hand. Most of the figures represented in the artist’s Harlem Women’s Series have been lost in history. She is bringing them back, celebrating them through quilt-like portraiture as business women or as musicians, which earlier in the 20th century was rare. She is celebrating the fact that these women were able to break through as artists. Because they were able to break through, that opened the door just a little so that she, as a visual artist, could make art too.

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Among the many roles she identifies with, Dindga McCannon is a multimedia visual artist, teacher, author and writer/illustrator. Primarily working with fiber art, she quietly and poetically unifies different mediums and stories. She has combined traditional quilting techniques with the fine arts, and she has bridged histories, shining light on those lost to the past. She often marries needlework (a craft she inherited from her mother and grandmother) with drawing, painting, and printmaking. McCannon describes her work as an exploration of “what ifs”. Her work honors the women who she says opened the door for her; it also pushes that door open still further for others. In the 1960s, McCannon was a founding member of the Weusi and Where We At artist collectives. Their primary issue was addressing racism in the arts and in particular feminist artists, during a time in which feminist art was predominantly focused on the issues of white middle-class women.

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Colors:

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• feminist_movement.n.01
• trade.n.02
• woman.n.01
• expunction.n.01
• history.n.01
• culture.n.01
• identity.n.01