grief, a virtual exhibition | ciarrakwalters.com

GRIEF

curated by ciarra

Willie Cole, Scene from a Battle, 1999

Grief -

Google definition: great sorrow.

After a year like 2020 I've seen the five stages of grief disappear and reappear in my life. I mean where does one begin?
The pandemic, the ups, and downs of my own life, the murders, the deaths, capitalism, climate change...the list goes on and on.

Roy DeCarava, Coltrane, Half Note, 1960

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Self Portrait, 1983

I realized it's been hard to admit that I have been grieving in general.
As time moves us forward and society returns to "normal", I am still anxious, upset, confused, and grieving over the state of the world and my life in it.

This exhibition is not like my first online exhibition, Anxiety. Grief came together after months and months of back and forth while Anxiety came together in a matter of a few days. I had to walk away and revisit this exhibition multiple times.

Linda Day Clark, Image No. 64, 1995

Roy DeCarava, Woman and Girl, 1960

Adrian Piper, Everything #2.8, 2003

Elizabeth Catlett, The Torture of Mothers, 1970

Jacob Lawrence, The Card Game, 1993

These artworks, along with countless others, offered me comfort in my time processing these feelings I've felt in 2021. Once I accepted my grief, this exhibition came together. Although I curated Grief in May of 2021 I could still feel this exhibition's effect in November - three months after my mother's passing. These works made me feel something again. When I look at these pieces, each one feels like it displays one form of grief to another.

Kristen Justesen, The Sculpture II, 1968

Ana Mendieta, Creek, 1974

Whether that be an expression, context, colors, or the body language of the subject. We share these feelings. We can recognize these feelings. We understand the feeling.

In Khalil Gibran's book, "The Prophet", he speaks on both joy and sorrow, saying, "When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight...the two are inseparable. Together they come..."

A.N. Lavrent'ev, Rain, 2011

Irving Penn, The Bath (O) (Dancer's Workshop of San Francisco, 1967

Charles White, Headlines, 1944

Ciarra K. Walters, Untitled, 2018

Hank Willis Thomas, Kama Mama, Kama Binti (Like mother like daughter), 1971/2008

Charles White, Sounds of Silence, 1978

Gibran's words make me wonder what brought these subjects great joy and what then brought them the sorrow they portrayed in these works? What about the artists who made them? What were they grieving or feeling when making this work? What do we do when we are grieving...or when we are joyful?

-Ciarra K. Walters