Upon This Ground: Reflections of Self a Mixed Media Workshop with Darlene Deloris

Our relationship with our ancestors is complicated and sometimes distant. Today we possess labels that many of our ancestors never had the opportunity to express about themselves because their existence alone was a circumstance of history. But what could we know about our ancestors if only they’d had the opportunity to live full lives as their true selves? Are we people that our ancestors might have been proud of? Join Historian and Multidisciplinary Artist Darlene Deloris on a journey of self-exploration as we use mixed media elements to connect how we see ourselves with what we know about our past relatives. Space is limited to 25 so RSVP today for this joint program with Ma’s House & BIPOC Art Studio, Inc.

Artist Statement

I am a Brooklyn based historian and multi-disciplinary artist centering my paintings around emotional intimacy within the Black diaspora. I am inspired by Black history, Black Americana, and vintage black & white portrait photographs. Using ethnographic research and reference photos, I paint portraits of contemporary Black people, typically women, frozen with stoic reactions or moods. Using a multitude of mediums and techniques combined with symbols, textures, patterns, and vibrant colors to tell stories and portray emotion, I give voice to the Black woman who is constantly transposing between a state of angst and of regality. I strive to make conscious, direct, intimate, and whimsical art that presents a stoic gaze to the viewer, with hopes of preserving and protecting the beauty that exists in everyday Black life.