Chain of Command series "The Black Path" 2020 Painting

For centuries the plight of the black man has been that of a constant battling against forces seeking to devalue his stature as an equal within the human realm. Though past are the brute eras of slavery and colonialism, he yet faces several injustices lingered on from prior segregatory measures set up to his disfavor and still has to put up with seemingly ceaseless waves of racial prejudice based on the color of his skin. Despite all odds, this man has fought his way up from all corners of the earth and not gave in to despair. In light of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, I chose the United States as the most fit setting to paint this story. Not only does the US record the lengthiest struggle against black oppression but it is here also that black consciousness was emancipated by activists like Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther and Malcolm X. The black folk of this country bore up with 250 years of slavery, the Jim Crowe laws, atrocities of Civil rights movement and continue to battle against a flawed justice system that underweights the most basic rights and freedoms of Black America, the right to life. At the base of the painting is a depiction of the slave era, a people down trodden but with a spirit uncrushed. Their determination to live as free men lays highlighted by a raised hand from one of the slave figures. This hand reaches out from the dreary bases beneath into the slightly colored patches of the painting, wherein is portrayed a time where minimal rights were attained post the abolition. The women figures above the slave depiction bring forth an Afrocentric tint, creatively kissing the black man's painstaking plight from the two poles of the world. Here the North (Black America under the Jim Crowe laws) and the South (Black South Africa under Apartheid laws), share the same similitude of a subjection under the cruel segregatory laws in their respective lands, in just about similar time periods. In the top right corner are the representational objectifications of the black spirit towards his quest for freedom. The spirit figures pursue an ascendancy towards the attainment of a life lived out within the much brighter patches of humane existence. The crimson silk entails a tremendous shedding of blood at the hands of his adversary along this often bloody march. The spirit figures wield to themselves, an open vintage clock and an hour glass that is quickly running down. These symbolize high time for meaningful transition and imply an urgency to the equality motion, its need to be reimagined in a new light, not as an enticing fallacy penned on paper but a way of life equally evidenced in all people's lives. To the top left lies a large scale mother figure dressed up in American Flag sweatpants carrying a baby on her laps. She epitomizes a deeply held longing for a much more safer and peaceable world for black generations to come, in a world which has long criminalized their very existence. This piece is both a celebration of gallant strides made by our forerunners in the realization of a racial equality and also a protest against retrogressive elements that withstand a cause overdue. Our world can do better.

Painting:Oil on Canvas

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:118.1 W x 78.7 H x 3.9 D in

Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.