Artists Walk Toward Freedom At CAW

The woman sits with a long gun in her hands, mouth open, part battle cry, part scream from the soul. In her tense stance, she looks ready to fight, but the sculpture is more than just a call to duty. The nails that are part of the sculpture are a clue: they connote neat dreadlocks, but are, in a literal sense, also metal being driven into the scalp. It’s clear she’s prepared for a long struggle, but also, she wonders why she has to do it, and perhaps from where she will draw the strength to carry on. That dichotomy extends to the gun she holds: does her fight involve using it or melting it down? Is it her tool or part of the source of the problem? Or both?

That sense of ambiguity, it turns out, is intentional. Redemption, for artist Linda Vauters Mickens, is both the name of the sculpture and the person depicted. She is ​“fearless, audacious, and courageous. But she is tired. Worn from the unrelenting fight. Redemption is strong, yet vulnerable.” 

In embracing complexity and spurring contemplation, Redemption is emblematic of the show it’s a part of: ​“Made Visible: Freedom Dreams,” curated by nico wheadon and running now at Creative Arts Workshop on Audubon Street through Mar. 18. It features the art of Mickens, Y. Malik Jalal, and Jasmine Nikole as well as public programs by the artists and program partner Babz Rawls Ivy, editor in chief of Inner City News and WNHH radio host.

Mickens’s art ​“offers a glimpse into her interpretations of the trials and tribulations of the African American experience,” an accompanying note states. Both ​“a warning and a celebration,” the pieces portray a ​“spirit of resilience despite ongoing injustices” and ​“a hope for change across the Diaspora more broadly.” As part of her public program associated with the exhibition, she will ​“curate a selection of music and spoken word performances that riff on freedom dreaming as a powerfully subversive and empowering act within the Black community.” She describes her work as ​“always evolving,” emerging from ​“a place of deep understanding of the connection between pain, resilience, and beauty.” 

Much of the complexity in Mickens’s pieces arises from the way she is able to reach back into the past to inform her art. She asks how much the external struggle of Black people for freedom is also an internal one. How much is freedom one of the mind as well as the body? 

Y. Mailk Jalal pursues a similar set of questions, exploring the ways in knowing the past, where a person came from, can give them what they need to deal with the present and the future. He ​“maps a constellation of life-sized images drawn from the family archives of long-time New Haven resident IfeMichelle Gardin,” an accompanying note states. His goal is to ​“serve and bring visibility to the legacy of home and placemaking of long-term African-American residents of the New Haven community.” Jalal’s work was produced ​“in dialogue” with Allison Minto of the Black New Haven Archive, a portrait and documentary project seeking to preserve the history of New Haven’s Black community and its members. Jalal’s own work will include oral histories that will ​“explore home as a space for Black families to dream, grow, and thrive.”

Likewise, the self-taught artist Jasmine Nikole’s paintings ​“embrace the uniqueness of our cultural heritage, celebrate diversity within Blackness, and prompt us to take pride in our individual and collective identities.” To Nikole, freedom dreams involve ​“being free to express ourselves authentically and without fear of judgment or censure” and ​“being liberated from the restrictive norms of expectations of Western society.” Her paintings at CAW envision ​“a contemporary Garden of Eden where we can all live together in harmony.” The connections among the paintings, created through a mural painted directly on the wall, ​“depict modern Black people returning to their ancestral roots.” Nikole’s public program will involve people who ​“share strategies for living off the land.” Through her art generally, she ​“aims to evoke self-reflection and healing” and hopes viewers ​“feel seen in their struggles, joys, sorrows, and accomplishments and more importantly to see their strength through it all.”

The idea of gathering strength through contemplation, by engaging with the complexities of the past, gives ​“Freedom Dreams” a richness and subtlety that reaches for a meaning beyond politics. It is, of course, about political change, but it’s also about internal changes that mirror the work toward external ones. So it seems fitting that Rawls Ivy’s program is, above all, a kind of meditative exercise. ​“For Rawls Ivy, dreams of a free future are rooted in our ability to reconnect and exhibit radical Black joy and love in the here and now,” an accompanying statement reads. ​“Embodying the practice of spiritual direction — or being with people as they attempt to deepen their relationship with the divine — Rawls Ivy will welcome visitors to sit with her, as they look at each other, hold hands and embrace on a bench painted with words of encouragement and affirmation.”

Rawls Ivy will be at the gallery Mondays from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. from Feb. 13 to March 6, as well as Feb. 25 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. ​“I want Black folks to come and be in communion with me. I want other folks to come and be in communion and get a taste of Black love.” Revolutions can be fought with smiles as well as weapons; a kind word, a quiet hour, can remind the fighter why they fight.