ADDRESSING THE MOMENT: THE ARTIST’S VOICE - Artist Panel

ADDRESSING THE MOMENT: THE ARTIST’S VOICE - Artist Panel - CLICK HERE TO VIEW

The Longview Museum of Fine Arts is bringing in a unique set of works as part of its Black History Month celebration. Four large-scale paintings created by emerging Black artists in Wilmington, Delaware, originally painted and installed on the boarded-up storefronts of a main street in the city’s downtown area, will be on display alongside photos of the artistic process.

The boards went up on the windows all over Wilmington’s downtown area on May 31st, 2020, just hours after the national civil unrest over the murder of George Floyd. The works were commissioned by Jonathan Whitney and Eliza Jarvis of Flux Creative Consulting and Joe del Tufo of Moonloop Photography. The three organizers sought to find a way to commemorate that moment in time and give Black artists a blank canvas on which to express themselves.

Artists James Wyatt, JaQuanne LeRoy, Jannah Williams, Erica Jones and E.Lizé completed works that were on view downtown for several months and gained widespread press as word spread across the nation. “I wanted to show that the history of what we’re fighting for today goes back years and years and years,” says Jannah Williams, the final artist of the four to create her work. “And we’re still fighting for it in different ways, but history is repeating itself as well.”