BLUE NOTES
Blue Notes, 2025, Installation, size variable, Art Crawl Harlem House, Boundaries & Connections, Governors Island
The Carr Family 1916, 2025, acrylic, collage, mirror, 35" tondo
Conversation of the Heart, 2025, acrylic, collage, mirror, glitter, 19" tondo
BLUE NOTES
Drawing from my mythic story of the Seven Sisters, I reimagined the lives of my maternal great-grandparents, grandmother, and grandfather through three 36-inch round paintings of the sky and outer space, layered with analog collage. The circular form evokes celestial portals, symbolizing the continuum between the earthly and the cosmic—between memory and imagination.
Blue dominates these works as both a spiritual and historical register. It reflects the third eye chakra, the indigo crop cultivated in the American Southern States, and the technological intelligence of my ancestors. Across African cultures, blue carries many meanings: love, peace, harmony, spirituality, and protection. In Nigeria, it symbolizes love and togetherness, while in Yoruba tradition, indigo represents spiritual power. In the diaspora, blue embodies both melancholy and hope, echoing the seas and skies that witnessed our passage and survival. Included in the installation is the series "Mother's Eyes", overseeing and witnessing the domestic scene of the installation. The eyes belong to significant creatives, writers, artists, thinkers, and activists who have shaped my personal development as an artist and creator. They convey a protective spirit as well as the path makers. We protect each other, as I preserve their memories and honor them. They are the ancestors who guide and protect me through this world and my creative journey. The presence of the mirrored disco balls casts a fragment of light, opening us to seeing, making visible other dimensions, creating a shift. And the crystals create rainbows like Newton, we question their source. To see what was always there but not acknowledged.
Guided by a 1915 photograph of my grandmother featured in "The Brass Valley," a book by historian Jeremy Brecher, I link family history to the collective story of Black endurance. Inspired by Robin D. G. Kelley's "Freedom Dreams, The Black Radical Imagination", Imani Perry's scholarship in "Black in Blues", and Christina Sharpe's "In the Wake, On Blackness and Being", my work aligns with Surrealism's call to imagine liberated futures. Through these pieces, I seek to heal ancestral wounds and celebrate resilience—speaking the names of those who came before us so we may continue to grow, like the mighty oak, in remembrance and strength.
Drawing from my mythic story of the Seven Sisters, I reimagined the lives of my maternal great-grandparents, grandmother, and grandfather through three 36-inch round paintings of the sky and outer space, layered with analog collage. The circular form evokes celestial portals, symbolizing the continuum between the earthly and the cosmic—between memory and imagination.
Blue dominates these works as both a spiritual and historical register. It reflects the third eye chakra, the indigo crop cultivated in the American Southern States, and the technological intelligence of my ancestors. Across African cultures, blue carries many meanings: love, peace, harmony, spirituality, and protection. In Nigeria, it symbolizes love and togetherness, while in Yoruba tradition, indigo represents spiritual power. In the diaspora, blue embodies both melancholy and hope, echoing the seas and skies that witnessed our passage and survival. Included in the installation is the series "Mother's Eyes", overseeing and witnessing the domestic scene of the installation. The eyes belong to significant creatives, writers, artists, thinkers, and activists who have shaped my personal development as an artist and creator. They convey a protective spirit as well as the path makers. We protect each other, as I preserve their memories and honor them. They are the ancestors who guide and protect me through this world and my creative journey. The presence of the mirrored disco balls casts a fragment of light, opening us to seeing, making visible other dimensions, creating a shift. And the crystals create rainbows like Newton, we question their source. To see what was always there but not acknowledged.
Guided by a 1915 photograph of my grandmother featured in "The Brass Valley," a book by historian Jeremy Brecher, I link family history to the collective story of Black endurance. Inspired by Robin D. G. Kelley's "Freedom Dreams, The Black Radical Imagination", Imani Perry's scholarship in "Black in Blues", and Christina Sharpe's "In the Wake, On Blackness and Being", my work aligns with Surrealism's call to imagine liberated futures. Through these pieces, I seek to heal ancestral wounds and celebrate resilience—speaking the names of those who came before us so we may continue to grow, like the mighty oak, in remembrance and strength.
Hall of Philosophy, 2022, clay
Copyright Colleen L. Coleman 2025