Hammonds House Museum

Legacy:The Paintings of Sedrick Huckaby
CONTENT, FORM & THE FUTURE-Artist’s Statement #1

Sedrick HuckabyI have always liked using paint in a “painterly” fashion. Originally, I was attracted to the perceptual effect of thickly encrusted paintings. Over the years I developed ways of using impasto that digress from the normal modes. “Relief painting” is the name I have given to the recent form of paintings that I am developing.

In relief painting the goal is to intertwine the actual form and the image in a seamless fashion, acting as both a painting and a relief. Another new innovation includes figural sculptures made out of mounded oil paint. Although it goes against normal painting techniques I know these new methods can be made into permanent forms.
I believe it is pertinent that artists keep broadening the use of traditional media. We must continue to look at the old mediums with fresh eyes. Too many painters are following beaten paths, which have led some critics to falsely claim that painting is dead; I rather believe that it has matured.

Along with the maturity of form, painting is also on the verge of a maturity of content. Some contemporary artists say paintings are solely about ideas while others exclaim it is about the abstract and formal elements.I believe painting has the ability to encompass both. In other words, a painting can be both abstractly beautiful and meaningful. These two aspects of painting should not be divided. Both the idea and the formal aspects of a piece should be considered simultaneously because the idea if formed via the formal considerations. Consequently, I do not believe that the idea is more important than the form, nor do I have high opinions of paintings that are “art for art’s sake.” Simply stated, when content and form combine completely it allows the viewer to believe the painting is something other than what it actually is or mean something more than the sum of it’s medium. This process of transformation is the magic of painting.The African-American family and it’s heritage has been the content of my world for the last few years.

Through portraiture I have been depicting the African-American Family and I have chosen to paint quilts as an element of our heritage.In large-scale portraits of family and friends I try to aggrandize ordinary people by painting them on a monumental scale. Although I have used various references while painting, I am most enthusiastic about painting from a live sitter. There is an incredible energy when I am painting directly from another person and I Love the challenge. Sometimes there is conversation and at other times silence but always there is a feeling of sharing a small slice of life together.

I hope these paintings not only celebrate the sitter’s beautiful facial features but also sends the message that ordinary people, who may not be great in society’s eyes, should be of paramount importance to us.Some of the portraits get abstracted and become a mixture of internal thoughts and external images. “Little D and the Dollar” is a large head and shoulders portrait of my cousin. In this piece the background has a grid-like collage of actual dollar bills which is contrasted by a large scale, heavily encrusted portrait of “Little D”. The larger image merges into the grid-like field of currency making the painting look like a cross between Lucien Freud and Chuck Close paintings. This painting speaks on various levels but one pertinent question it raises is, “does our currency hold a quiet subliminal message that only one race of people helped in creating and fulfilling the American Dream?

“I hope it urges people to keep molding America into a more perfect form of the original dream. Part of this “molding” will consist of updating our currency so it represents a more complete vision of America, one that proudly includes all the diverse ethnic people that were/are instrumental in forming this nation into a country with “liberty, justice and freedom for all.”

There are small images of Martin Luther King collaged into a few of the bills suggesting that he could “fit the bill”. The painting is a call to action to keep molding our nation toward it’s ideal state with the understanding that America is now at a more mature state of development than it was when the founding fathers declared it’s creed.

Formally, I try to keep pushing the limits of painting with these portraits. The techniques I employ include ala prima, washes, glazes, collages of text and images, and any logical method I can find to fix sculptural elements to a flat surface. Some of the materials used are oil, acrylic, tempera, house paint, wooden blocks, old paint tubes, mounds of discarded paint and possibly any other thing I can find at hand that would make a permanent form.Originally, while working on a smaller scale, I found that there could be a perfect synthesis of image and actual form by mixing discarded oil paint with new paint. Then I began learning various ways to make these kinds of painting on both a small and large scale.

After learning various ways to make these paintings a natural progressive step was to make full fledge figural sculptures out of the mounded, discarded paint. While working on each piece I am constantly seeking a more perfect state and process.The paintings are made through an interesting process of finding beauty and making it. Short spurts of creative experimentation, control and patience accurately describes this process. In the end the constant tension between macro and micro elements are between the materials and the image gives clarity tot he meaning of each piece. In the last five or six years I have been working on both the portrait paintings and a series of quilt paintings.

These “quilt paintings” are not paintings done on actual quilts but are primarily paintings of my grandmother’s quilts dome as a way of depicting and celebrating and African-American Quilting Tradition. Working from these quilts are like a musician making new music with new instruments using old records as a reference. In fact, I consider myself more fortunate than the aforementioned musician because I am using the actual artwork as a reference and the musician is using a reproduction.

Sometimes I see the quilts as the African-American Woman’s “jazz”. The women would sit together making quilts in a different kind of “jam session”.The group was composed of a circle of women, conversing, improvising and making rhythmic beauty together. Even though I am not a female, I draw inspiration from this rich heritage while simultaneously trying to uphold it. I feel that these paintings are examples of an artistic family legacy in which I am now an heir. There is a great joy in doing these works because I am one on the few people in the world who could say I am doing a “jam session with grandma.”

Though some of the works are like simple beautiful melodies, many are about more than what they appear to be at a first glance. The Content of the quilts pertain to seasons, marriage, our family lineage, or even God. The meaning are similar to the old “negro spirituals” that are about things like mighty rivers, winds, trees and rain.The songs are usually never about what they appear to be about ont he surface and the quilts follow this same pattern because many have have more meaning than just abstract beauty. Instead they are about deeper convictions.

A good example of the subject being something other than what it appears is my piece “A Love Supreme”. It is a 7′ 8″ x 80′ painting of quilts that I have been working on for the last four years. One would view this piece by entering into a room in which the painting totally surrounds the viewer. There are four large wall, each 20′ long filled with images of quilts. At first glance this painting seems to be a large, trompe l’oeil’ painting about the beauty of quilts. The painting is indeed about the beauty of quilts yet it is about much more. The deeper content of this painting implies that certain forms of jazz music, a grandmother’s quilt making practice, seasonal cycles and abstract designs are all connected and suggest a supernatural love.

“A Love Supreme” calls to mind many kinds of love. One kind is a mother’s love. Many of the older quilts are undoubtedly objects of love because they are hand crafted gifts from mothers and grandmothers made to be both a beautiful work of art and a warm covering during the winter nights. Therefore the painting speaks about a personal love while simultaneously alluding to a less personal kind of love in the referencing of seasons. The Dichotomy of personal and impersonal love agrees with my understanding of His supreme love.

As previously stated the painting concurrently suggest a large, less personal kind of love in the arrangement of the seasons. The spring gives birth to new life of many forms. Then in the summer the same life reaches full blossom and maturity. A richness of color and older age marks the fall. All of the beauty of fall is in preparation for the next season. Last the white of winter purifies the earth through a freeze. Diseases are cleansed and some life forms die, only to be reborn again to continue the cycle in the spring.

By looking at the seasons we can see how the Creator continually rejuvenates life. Each wall in “A Love Supreme” is thematically based on a season and the entire cycle envelopes the viewer. It is as if the viewer is wrapped in a large seasonal quilt. In this context, with a little jump of the imagination, one could also relate the cycle of the seasons to the cycles of a person’s life. When I look around at all of creation I notice that the Creator is a master of both improvisation and order. Jazz music is constructed so that there is a larger order yet it is improvisational in various ways.

The fact that the painting is named after John Coltrane’s, “A Love Supreme”, hints that I see a spiritual love apparent in a particular period of this musician’s music. Perhaps some day people will consider Coltrane’s jazz as spiritually driven as the great spirituals of old. “A Love Supreme” the song, is based on four beat phrases. It starts out slow and the musician methodically complicates the music until he reaches a climax of furious improvisation; a grinding, wailing fluster of notes that seem to come directly from his heart. Then at the end of the song he arrives back to the beginning of the melody, back to the calm, simple four beat melody.

The four beat melody has the feel of a pulsing heart beat after a flutter of commotion and the four syllable phrase, a love supreme, is changed along with it’s accompanying four beat rhythm. “A Love Supreme”, the painting, was designed with this understanding woven into it. It is also constructed so that there is both a larger order and improvisation.Finally, through design and composition this piece formally speaks about he Creator and Designer of the Universe. Usually the viewer is able to either walk around a piece of art or walk through it. “A Love Supreme” totally surrounds the viewer with images of quilts. Through it’s design I try to show a great love that is all encompassing. The images are cropped so that you get a close up view of the quilts without being able to see around them. Composing the painting in this way emphasizes the abstract qualities of it.

With no beginning or ending within the framework of the composition the work of art metaphorically speaks about everlasting existence of the Almighty Creator. The artwork’s particular cropping helps to emphasize many aspects of it’s design; rhyme, repetition, color, space, shape, mass scale, line and texture, which in turn creates a tension between the image and its abstract qualities. The element of time is even an important aspectof the piece. In the mist of all the painterly activity I hope that the process of viewing it calls for a quite, calming experience which invites the viewer to take a little more time with it. Thus what initially looks like a simple painting of quilts is actually an attempt to speak about the greatest designer, composer and creator the universe has ever known. This creator is the one we call God. My understanding of God is multifaceted and I try to speak about the Creator in a multifaceted way.

ART & PRAYER- Artist’s Statement #2
It is indeed a strange thing to speak from ones heart without knowing the exact words to verbalize the experience. This phenomenon happens within the language of painting. A painting is a quit dialogue in which volumes of information is slowly and silently revealed, yet its entire essence can be experienced within a moments glance.

I believe my paintings are done in a language more closely in tune with my soul than the language of my tongue. For me, the act of painting is not just a means to a product; it is also a meditative process of communication. This it is with the visual language that I choose to speak about the most pressing issues of life. The resulting paintings speak about the outer world around me and the inner world within. Multifaceted works with layers of meanings are a consequence of working between the dichotomy of internal and external inspirations.

If my paintings are successful they will not only speak to the viewer’s intellect, but they will speak to the deeper being that lies beyond words as well. It it said that every man prays in his own language and the God understands all languages.

At the end of life my greatest hope is that God is pleased with all of the prayers I left behind in the form of paintings.