Gallery Opening: "Hevy.W8.Fawnk" - The Work Of Rodrecas L. Davis

We are thrilled to showcase Region 8 artist Rodrecas L. Davis in a solo exhibition here at The Gallery at 118 Cotton Street in Downtown West Monroe from April 1st - May 10th! Opening reception is Thursday April 4th, 2024 from 5:00pm to 9:00pm, in conjunction with the Downtown Gallery Crawl! ABOUT THE SHOW: “This is heavyweight funk. Put up your dukes.” The title, taken from the song "Funkentelechy", by Parliament (1977). The song urges the listener to “Mind your wants 'cause there's someone that wants your mind”. When considering imagery for a piece to include in my M.F.A. thesis exhibition, I wanted to create something that could address the persistence of stereotypes in the New Millennium. This work would underline and interrogate then-President Bill Clinton's supposition that closing the Digital Divide would act as both a social and economic panacea. For that, I created P.M.D., or Post Modem Discourse. P.M.D. is now a series of mixed-media works, fashioned primarily from a re-purposed wooden chair with modern implements attached. The overall visage is based upon a mix of stereotypical imagery pulled from a range of Pop-Cultural references and recent references to African statuary. Taken as a whole, the work is both a Post Modem Discourse and a Post Modern Discourse. Either the stereotypical imagery drives the future, or the technology drives the stereotypes. Using repurposed materials, P.M.D. acts as literal illustrations of what happens when the ‘old’ and ‘new’ collide. These works are in conversation with pieces from a series titled Fellow Travelers, which were created with the benefit of the NELA Mini-Grant (2019). Conceived as contemporized tapestries, these pieces are influenced by narrative quilts and constructed as mixed media collages. This series most prominently draws from quilts made by descendants of enslaved Africans. The works depict imagery that references contemporary coded language, and Kongo and Yorùbá cosmology. Their relationship to the quilts of Harriet Powers and the Quilters of Gee's Bend (Boykin, Alabama) are significant in that they are intended to echo the idea of ancestral “signposts” and maps. Not unlike quilts found along the Underground Railroad, the Fellow Travelers are intended to point us in the right direction. My research builds upon that of Robert Farris Thompson (Flash of the Spirit), Richard Powell (Black Art: A Cultural History), and Albert Raboteau (Slave Religion: “The Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South) to name a few. All of which detail the myriad ways African ideologies and language persist in colloquialisms, artistic expressions, and contemporary religious practices. Since living and working in Louisiana, my work has grown to include a broader consideration of the persistence of African influences in American society. Through associations with the Nation of Islam and Dr. Robert Farris Thompson's seminal Flash of the Spirit, Hip Hop culture and the visual arts have highlighted the many ways in which the American fabric has been and will be a product of the African Diaspora. Sankofa. ABOUT THE ARTIST: A native of Monroe, Georgia, Rodrecas Davis is a 2006 graduate of the University of Georgia Fine Arts program - with an emphasis on drawing and painting. Primarily a mixed media artist, Davis is also a former columnist for the Athens Banner-Herald and Code Z Online: Black Visual Culture Now. Davis has presented papers at several academic conferences, including the HUIC Conference (Hawaii University International Conferences) Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences, for which he discussed manifestations of Hip-Hop culture in the visual arts. His work has been featured in the Politics Issue of Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters, ColorLines, and over sixty exhibitions. Mr. Davis is Professor, and Head of the Department of Visual & Performing Arts at Grambling State University, in Grambling Louisiana. He most recently served as juror of the 77th Annual Wabash Valley Exhibition, at the Swope Art Museum (IN).