Yinka Shonibare, CBE
English-Nigerian, born 1962
Girl Balancing Knowledge III, 2017
Fiberglass mannequin, Dutch wax printed cotton textile, books, globe, leather, steel baseplate
Purchase: Priscilla Payne Hurd Endowment Fund, 2017. (2018.1a-c)
Balancing on one foot with a teetering pile of books on her back, this young girl appears to be doing the impossible, if temporarily. Who is she? Where is she from?
Dressed in nineteenth-century Western fashion made from African textiles, her identity is elusive, as is the period in which she lives. These fabrics were historically made in Europe using Indonesian wax-resist techniques for sale to a colonial African market, but today have become a symbol of pan-African pride. Shonibare’s use of this material evokes the complexities of the colonial past and cross-cultural interactions and identities today.
The knowledge the girl balances is in the form of mid-nineteenth to early twentieth-century literature and scientific volumes in English, suggesting the dominance of Western education. This reference has particular resonance for Shonibare, who attended Western schools growing up in Lagos, Nigeria, before completing his education in England. However, the writers whose names mark the constellations on the girl’s head reflect ideas from over the centuries and across the world. Look carefully at the details of her Victorian clothing, the authors marked on the celestial globe of her head, and the titles of the books she balances to explore her story for yourself.
Alan Cohen
American, born 1943
Lines of Authority (Vatican City / Rome), 1994
Lines of Authority (Israel / Jordan), 2009
Lines of Authority (Oaxaca / Mexico), 1995
NOW (Berlin Wall), 1996
Gelatin silver prints
Gift of Andrea Hohf, 2013. (2013.20.7-9, 13)
In his series Lines of Authority, Alan Cohen documents national borders. His linear imagery makes these borders apparent, like a real-world counterpart to the bold lines on a map. Yet the ordinary terrain also subverts this ideal of an official boundary, instead suggesting the arbitrary and temporary nature of such divisions.
Using Cohen’s work as a point of departure, the works on view throughout this gallery explore intersections of land, borders, and identity.
Angel Suarez-Rosado
American, born 1957
White Fence, 2003
Found objects, wood, paint
Purchase: The Ardath Rodale Art Fund, 2021.
(2021.7a, b)
Puerto Rican-born, Easton-based Angel Suarez-Rosado plays with expectations in his installation White Fence. On approach, we see a white picket fence that suggests an uncomplicated American domestic ideal. Passing through, we encounter hybrid symbols of violence, pain, and great spiritual power.
Suarez-Rosado is a practitioner of Santería, an Afro-Cuban religion that merges elements of West African Yoruba faith with Catholicism, and was a means for enslaved Africans to maintain their identity in the Americas. In its use of sharp metal objects, nails, and tools, White Fence recognizes Ogun, the god of iron and war in the pantheon of Yoruban deities. Nails hammered into the surface of the fence recall nkisi, central African power figures whose forms were the result of both creation and use, contributed to by a sculptor and a priest, who used the figure to heal illness, settle disputes, and punish wrongdoers.
Mary Tobias Putman
American, born 1943
Self‑Portrait at 65, 2008
Acrylic on panel
Gift of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New
York, Hassam, Speicher, Betts and Symonds Funds, 2010. (2010.18)
Kay WalkingStick
American, born 1935
Blame It On The Mountains III, 1998
Oil and brass leaf on canvas (left panel); oil on canvas (right panel)
Gift of David Echols, 2011. (2011.11 a, b)
In this painting, the sensual curves of the female figure complement the rugged mountains. Kay WalkingStick’s series Blame the Mountains was inspired by the end of a romantic relationship during a trip to the Dolomites, a mountain range of northern Italy.
An important component of Easton-based WalkingStick’s identity is her Cherokee and Scottish-Irish heritage. She likes to create diptychs—artworks with separate panels that are joined together—which she states are “particularly attractive to those of us who are biracial.”
Angela Fraleigh
American, born 1976
And then we’ll walk right up to the sun, 2016
Oil, acrylic, and marker on canvas
Purchase: Priscilla Payne Hurd Endowment Fund, 2019. (2019.11)
The art-historical canon typically portrays women as one-dimensional figures to be lusted after, as victims of violence, or as passive background decoration. Allentown artist Angela Fraleigh retrieves such women from the sidelines of respected historic works, giving them new life in her monumental paintings.
In And then we’ll walk right up to the sun, Fraleigh excerpts figures from two paintings by nineteenth-century French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme, who was known for imagery that affirmed Western fantasies of the Middle East as a place of sensuality, violence, and submissiveness. While Gérôme used these women as foils for white subjects, Fraleigh makes them the focus of her composition. Her work encourages us to explore their agency and possible subversion—with the white protagonists removed from their scene, what might they choose to do?
Italian
Panel, ca. 1936
Airbrushed rayon plain weave
Gift of Kate Fowler Merle-Smith, 1978. (1978.26.629).
Mapping the Horn of Africa, this textile celebrates Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s 1936 annexation of Ethiopia and declaration of empire. The designer created sharp borders and soft shading with an airbrush, a tool embraced by Italian artists and designers during the 1930s. Bold geometric lettering further enlivens the map. These appealing, modern design choices suggest that imperial expansion is moving Italy towards a bright future.
Possibly Australian
Blouse, 1940/45
Printed rayon crepe
Gift of Kate Fowler Merle-Smith, 1978. (1978.26.519)
Possibly Australian
Shirt, ca. 1941
Printed cotton plain weave
Gift of Kate Fowler Merle-Smith, 1978. (1978.26.514)
The splashy printed fabric used to make the blouse at left honors Australia’s contributions during World War II. The designer included the insignia of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and Australian Commonwealth Forces (orange half-sunbursts); landmarks like the Eiffel Tower and Egyptian pyramids; and imagery of military and Red Cross personnel—all layered over the outlines of Commonwealth nations.
On the other hand, the shirt at right maps key battle sites along the Libyan coast, interspersed with mosques and palm trees. Bardia and Derna were among the first major conflicts in which Australian forces participated: marking them here suggests that this textile may likewise have been designed to commemorate Australia’s role in the war.
Iman Raad
Iranian, born 1979
Until We Hardly See, 2019
Patinas and screen print on copper, edition: 35
Printers: Pedro Barbeito and Jase Clark, Experimental Printmaking Institute, Easton, PA
Publisher: Experimental Printmaking Institute, Easton, PA
Purchase: Priscilla Payne Hurd Endowment Fund, 2019. (2019.12)
A mirrored bird proliferates like a digital glitch in Until We Hardly See, evoking both seventeenth-century South Asian nature paintings and twenty-first-century technologically mediated visual culture. Iman Raad has explained that these works “mainly evolved after my migration to the United States. Living a hybrid life … I have experienced a stammering communication with, and a shattered understanding of my surroundings, and of myself in the eyes of others.”
Raad’s reality-disrupting subversion of form is supported by his unorthodox application of technique. The copper plate, typically a surface from which to print, is here printed on. The dreamlike setting of the image is the result of chemical modification of the metal surface with experimental homemade patinas of salt, vinegar, and Miracle-Gro®.