More than two dozen of Kansas City’s Black women painters gathered at the Museum of Kansas City earlier this fall for a group shot. Pictured bottom row, left to right: Florencia Marie, Yvette Wilkins, Felize Kehinde, Janine Carter, Michelle Beasley; second row, left to right: Remy Wharry, Arlon Jackson. Vivian Bluett, Anita Easterwood, Rockie Phillips; third row, left to right: Tia Thomas, Maria North; fourth row, left to right: Alea Lovely Jones, Amber Reynolds, Lolita Looney, Mia Ailyse, Denita Robinson, Aisha Imani Sanaa; back row, left to right: Crystal Major, Daynie Gardner, Day Adams, Malissa Hinton, Sandra Fielder, Antoinette Drone, Toni Gates, Adrianne D. Clayton, Maria Riley. (photo by Jim Barcus)
Black women painters ascendant in Kansas City
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise. — From “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou
Against the odds, Black women painters in Kansas City are forging a historic path and creating artistic communities through love, resilience and courage. After years in the shadows, they are also enjoying enhanced exposure at venues around the city.
This path runs from the vibrant new abstract paintings of seasoned quilter and painter Sonie Joi Thompson-Ruffin, through warm and endearing portraits by mid-career painter and educator Adrianne Clayton and into the explosively vibrant paintings joyously exploring Black life by talents such as Yvette Wilkins, Clariece Kirkwood and Feliz Kehinde.
Displayed at venues including The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the Leedy-Voulkos Art Center, as well as the Zhou B Art Center, InterUrban ArtHouse, Charlotte Street and Englewood Arts, spaces where many of them also have studios, the works of these gifted painters span a vibrant range of stylistic conventions and subject matter.
“Looking Toward Grace” by Lolita Looney, a painting veteran of more than 50 years, presents a tender exploration of the human experience. In “The Rose of Sharon,” Denita Robinson, known online as Denita Necole Art, uses blues and soft tones to shed a gentle light on Black femininity. In “Golden Boy,” Clariece Kirkwood bathes her masculine subject in deep, rich hues, topped with gold, that emanate from the canvas itself. Daisha Maria-Breona’s “War Room” masterfully uses a limited palette to explore Black womanhood and faith.
This exposure occurs against a challenging backdrop.
Museums of American art have historically, and continue, to underrepresent the work of Black women artists, including painters, in their collections.
Black women comprise 7.8% of the total U.S. population and 15.5% percent of the female population. However, researchers have found that only 1.2% of work in major American museums was created by Black or African American women. Women of color are 20% of the population but make up only 1% of the artists in major museum collections. Even more disturbing is the fact that art by Black American women comprises 0.1% of art auction sales.
To put it more bluntly, most American museums should replace the tagline “of American Art” with “of white male American Art” to present a more accurate portrayal of what patrons can expect to see.
The challenges to Black women artists don’t just come from without, they also come from within. The postmodern Black American painter and printmaker Emma Amos was the only woman invited to join the legendary Romare Bearden’s Spiral group. Amos was only asked to join after the members inspected her work, while the male members were not required to have such inspection.
Amos herself expressed that the group “weren’t comfortable with women artists as colleagues.”
Faith Ringgold, after observing the marginalization of Black women in the famed Black Arts Movement, turned her focus to feminist politics and co-founded Black women’s groups including “Where We At,” Black Women Artists, Inc., Women Students and Artists for Black Art Liberation.
Stars of hope have begun to shine in this darkness, however. According to Dr. Stephanie Fox Knappe, Sanders Sosland Senior Curator at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and organizer of the museum’s seminal 2021-22 exhibit, “Testimony: African American Artists Collective,” “Many museums and survey-text authors are catching up and catching on to the brilliance that has always been there as they commit to present a more inclusive, and therefore more truthful, art history where Black women painters’ visions and voices are celebrated and amplified. There is always more work to be done.”
Locally, an important turning point occurred with “Magnetic Fields: Expanding American Abstraction, 1960s to Today,” a 2017 traveling exhibition launched at Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. Co-curated by Erin Dziedzic and Melissa Messina, it was the first U.S. exhibition dedicated exclusively
to the presentation of abstraction by an intergenerational group of Black women artists.
“The 2017 exhibition and catalogue ‘Magnetic Fields,’ which I co-curated at Kemper Museum, stands as a pivotal moment in my career. The network of extraordinary women artists and scholars who contributed to the project enriched every stage of its development, infusing the show with a resonance and vitality that endures,” states Dziedzic, now an independent curator in New York.
The Power of the Collective
The Black women painting community of Kansas City is a rich stew of diverse narratives and experiences. Each one brings a unique voice to the canon of art in America and provides a network of support for her peers, through organizations such as the African American Artists Collective of Kansas City, Black Space Black Art, The International African American Art Museum of Kansas City, and other smaller groups of artists.
Individual efforts also play a significant role.
Sixty-eight-year-old Lolita Looney passed down her painting skills to her daughters Crissi Rice, Alea Lovely and Katherine Looney by teaching them to paint, beginning in early childhood. While their styles and subjects differ, one can easily tell that they were mentored by a painter who has clearly mastered technique and form. “I always had art materials out for the kids at any time to put together things they wanted to create and would assist in facilitating what they wanted to do,” says Looney. Tireless in her commitment, she is now passing her skills on to her adopted younger daughters, Alexis and AnaLi Looney.
Historically speaking, painters and writers share a unique bond of support, especially in the history of Black art. Several of these painters were first exhibited under the curation of Natasha Ria El-Scari, director of the Women’s Center at UMKC. “Centering African American women visual artists is so powerful because as a collective, our voices are rarely heard,” El-Scari said. “Often it feels like we are fighting in our own boxes, although the challenges are similar.”
They share the same inner struggles of all creatives. “The biggest challenge I’ve faced as an artist is the ‘inner critic,’” says Nicole Oliver-Diggs, painter and wife of painter Lynell Diggs. “Once you overcome that, I believe the criticism of others can be taken with a grain of salt. Also, making time to create and maintain the other things life holds is a challenge in itself. The key is finding ‘your’ balance.”
Black women artists, bound by gender and race, bring a unique energy to Kansas City’s art scene. The voices of African ancestors can be heard in their work as well as the voice of today’s Black Americans.
