'The Black Experience: His and Hers' Art Exhibit Stirs Emotion

With music, food and festivities, a large crowd gathered for the opening reception of The Black Experience: His and Hers, an art exhibit at The Brother Kenneth Chapman Gallery Iona College Arts Center, on Sunday.

Nineteen pieces of mixed media art created by local artists were on display, where they will remain through March 3. Charles McGill, Tania Guerrera. Bernard Cameron, Atiim Turnbull, Evierobbie, Earlie Richardson and curator Peridot Smith's work span decades and themes, motifs and—in some cases—history lessons.

“There are so many experiences in this exhibit,” said Madalyn Barbero Jordan, the gallery's director. “I think that is the theme. Everyone is so different. The Black Experience is who are you as a black person, as a young black person, as an old black person, as a black woman.”

Each artist verbally answered the question of “Who are you?” on tapes that play in a loop, touching on their experiences and how they are expressed in their art.

“I have been doing abstract for some time,” said curator Peridot Smith. “Tina [one of two pieces on display] was the first piece that was called Push. As I was taking a class at the College of New Rochelle, I decided to do my old style of abstraction with this realistic style. So Push represents me pushing into a new direction. She is Tina, but she is Push first. And it is emblematic because Tina Turner is someone who pushed through adversity.”

Tania Guerrera depicted women in her paintings. “I'm from Puerto Rico, so they kind of have the indigenous, the African and the Caribbean mixture," she said. "The sun itself in Meditations is a Caribbean motif. [The woman in the painting] is holding her third eye in front of her heart, and a waterfall, which symbolizes wisdom, is falling on her head.”

Margart LeMelle was visibly moved by the work.

“It touched my soul,” she said. “I've been living here in New Rochelle for 30 years, I taught at the New Rochelle High School, and I feel glad that Iona has chosen to present this exhibit.”

City Clerk Bennie Giles has been to the gallery a few times but said, “One problem is that people don't know that the gallery is here. [My wife and I] went to a gallery at the College of New Rochelle last week and we had the place to ourselves.”

Born and raised in New Rochelle, Joyce and Bob Baum of Albany heard about the exhibit from a mailing list and decided to take the trip down.

“I think this is wonderful, and it is the first time that I have come into the gallery. It is great to have an art center and it's so important to have one, especially at a college,” said Joyce.

New Rochellean Larry Smith was passing by the piece Tina and overheard someone say, “Yes, that is really Tina, it is her eyes.”

“It's nice when you know what the artist is trying to convey," Smith said. "There are a bunch of different themes, like for instance, there is one very large piece with two pit bulls, and it could be depicting a scene in any of the five boroughs. Another painting depicts miners in Africa.”

All of the paintings, photographs and videos are available for sale. A curator's gallery tour is scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 10 at noon.