Robin Annette Jordan at the PCAF Gallery
Published in the Weekly Volcano, March 14, 2019
by Alec Clayton
untitled acrylic painting by Robin Annette Jordan, courtesy PCAF. |
Pierce County AIDS Foundation has set aside a
part of their offices as an art gallery, and for the month of March is showing
a group of paintings by Robin Annette Jordan called She to bring attention to National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS
Awareness Day.
Every year throughout the month of
March local, state, federal, and national organizations come together to shed
light on the impact of HIV and AIDS on women and girls and show support for
those at risk of and living with HIV.
This year marks the 14th annual observance
of National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.
Progress against HIV and AIDS has
been made, but many are still vulnerable to infection, especially Black
or African-American and Hispanic women.
A release from PCAF explains that the show “organically embodies
identity, presence, and ownership of eloquence and strength” and further
reminds us that HIV and AIDS “are still widespread public health issues, and
women remain particularly impacted by the virus. Today, nearly one in four
people who are diagnosed with HIV are women.”
Jordan’s work “challenges us to move towards improving the wellbeing of
women through policy, education, and innovative programs.”
Jordan’s acrylic paintings picture faceless women of color in various
situations or environments. They are all about the same size (approximately
16-by-12 inches) and each piece is displayed in a recycled frame.
The drawing of the figures is unpolished and more decorative than
detailed, with mostly flat figures with no shading or modeling. Most of the
paintings are of single women, though there is one of two women dancing in
colorful costumes and two similar paintings with a group of nine or more
dancing women in identical dresses with
black bodies and black hair streaked with white. These figures look like dolls
and are starkly dramatic. Most of the women depicted in the other paintings
have brown skin — the same uniform dark brown in each painting. The dresses
worn by the two dancing women mentioned above look like dresses seen on women
at Carnival in Rio de Janeiro or at Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
The backgrounds and clothing in Jordan’s pictures
are painted in intense colors, and although the faces are featureless, they are
of particular people. In a printed statement, the artist says she expresses her
love of color “through my faceless artwork by telling stories about things I
have done and seen, about family and friends, and watching National Geographic.
Why faceless? It makes the artwork more interesting for an individual person to
understand what the artwork is perhaps saying to him or her.”
What it says to me is that women of color have for too long been
invisible — left out of history, left out of art, and relegated to minor roles
in film and literature.
Since the women are faceless, the visual beauty
resides in the vibrancy of the colors and shapes in the dresses and the
background, which for a self-taught artist display an exciting sense of design
and color usage.
She, Robin Annette Jordan, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday,
Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday, through March 31, PCAF Gallery, 3009 S
40th St., Tacoma, 253.383.2565 ext. 7201
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