It’s easy to feel alone in a crowded room. But sitting among the 4×6’ paintings hanging on the walls of the Melvin Peterson Gallery, I felt no such loneliness even while being alone. I feel the presence of many women standing, smiling, and existing in the same space as me. The artistic genius behind this exhibition? Sandra Charles. I had the honor of speaking with Charles about her and her artwork. Below are a few excerpts of my interview with her.
“When I was in high school and I started noticing, because I always like doing the figure, I started noticing that a lot of the old portraits, one, they featured men and all be white men and the ones with the women in them, they were always posing funny. And some, I think it’s like the 1700s, where the man would be really big and then the women small. Yeah. And to top it off, I think it was in 2004, we went, took a trip to DC. And my husband, who’s an attorney, loves the Supreme Court. We go in there and those are huge portraits of all the, you know, history of the justices, and it was very annoying to see there was nobody there like me.
“And, when I was growing up, the people who really ran the neighborhood were the women. I grew up in an era where a lot of the women were housewives. They’re also the ones that ran the church, you know, they were always on some committee and so they were the authority figures in my life. So I wanted to show this.”
“It’s all about the figure and showing them how they really are. So that’s how I came to putting the figure from the top of the canvas to the bottom of the canvas. It’s kind of like the canvas, actually, is a frame. It’s how you’d look at something on a screen. It frames the figure. And so I acknowledge it there in a canvas. But I want them to explode, you know, and engage the viewer, like, in a bold way.”
“It’s that these are average women. They’re everyday women. And it’s their stories. The theme behind my paintings is the African American experience and especially black women. It’s our experience. And it’s not only about how we’re presented in society, but it’s also how we think of ourselves. You know, it’s kind of like all the paintings are personal to me, like a personal statement. They are saying, here I am. The figure is showing them, like on the surface, but the background, especially in the later paintings, is actually about their personality and about what they’ve been through.”
Subtly yet with power, Charles creates strong portrayals of Black women existing in the real world, yet not in a traditionally “powerful” way. They do not show off muscles, they are not acting masculine, nor are they rising above all adversity. They are simply being, living the lives they’ve led for as long as they can remember, and assuring their place in the world just by doing that. All we must do is see and know her, and she becomes significant and powerful all on her own without doing anything particularly “special”.
You can see Sandra Charles’ show and learn more about her in the Melvin Peterson Gallery on the corner of Lincoln and Weinbach on weekday & Saturday afternoons until December 7th, 2024.
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