DAM has the honor of presenting Shirley Woodson: Why Do I Delight, curated by Leslie Graves. A legendary Detroit artist, educator, and this year’s Kresge Eminent Artist, Woodson’s career spans six decades, and her work is represented in collections across America, including the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Studio Museum in Harlem. Why Do I Delight showcases Ms. Woodson’s range, from early paintings and collage produced in muted tones to the richly colored canvases that have become her signature work.
Dreams #3, painted in 1995, is installed on the gallery wall that seems reserved for Best in Show. This painting’s effervescence is expressed through a vibrant palette in a composition that moves, rolls, recedes then projects forward. The shapes balance each other with a swipe of Kelly green along the top of the cadmium yellow form in response to the circle in the upper left. I’d sleep forever if I had dreams like this.
Beach Scene was created in 1966. Here Woodson’s composition is busy, abstracted and loose. Gestural marks and cross-hatched shading reveal the artist’s hand. Her muted tones are complemented with metallics. This piece not only sows the seeds for later work, it’s historically significant in that it was reproduced in The Negro in Music and Art, Vol. 11, 1967, chronicling Black culture and promoting African American history.
Beach Scene #2 was painted in 1995 and illustrates Woodson’s evolution. Here the image is smoothed, less chaotic. The same expressive marks appear via brush rather than graphite, as in the splash of orange at the central figure’s waist. Her proportions are spot on while pink, purple and blue produce the figure’s dimension. A lovely curved pink, orange and forest green shadow appears on the back of the man’s thigh while lemon yellow keeps the picture evenly weighted. This trip to the beach is considerably more cheerful than the previous.
Two brand new neon pieces are exhibited among the painted works. I haven’t had the pleasure of asking the artist where these came from. Neon certainly plays off of her exuberant paintings and I can see where the title of the show comes from. Being familiar with her son Senghor Reid’s work, he’s very present in these paintings. My father was a painter. We never discussed what we were working on at the time it was happening, but somehow we’d wind up painting similarly. Shirley Woodson and Senghor Reid clearly have that same kind of molecular, DNA connection. It’s a joy to see this phenomenon in another parent/child art family. This show is entirely delightful and there’s nothing pedestrian about it.
On view through October 23rd at Detroit Artists Market 4719 Woodward
*images are mine
Indicates a direct quote from gallery or artist statements
SHOWS OPEN THIS WEEKEND
Power of the Press Fest for Signal-Return