“Make work.” Laura James shared this concise but highly effective mantra with me throughout a go to to her Bronx studio in West Farms. A poster bearing the phrase hangs on her wall — a nod, she defined, to the affect of Marcus Garvey’s industrious philosophy. James doesn’t search institutional permission; she makes artwork relentlessly, owns the means of creating, and lets the work maintain her group. She is a beloved presence within the cultural ecology of the Bronx. She is a multidisciplinary artist, manages a thriving group backyard in her neighborhood of West Farms, and is the founding father of BX200: Bronx Visible Artists Listing. She was raised in Brooklyn by Antiguan dad and mom and has lived within the Bronx for many years.
In occasions of resurgent fascism and assaults on progressive training, James does what the second calls for of her: She makes work. James’s apply — encompassing portray, illustration, and sculpture — weaves collectively themes of race, gender, class, historical past, and spirituality with readability. Amongst her most poignant contributions is the continuing American Historical past collection, which she started in 1999 after studying concerning the brutal 1998 killing of James Byrd. Jr., a Black man, by White supremacists in Texas. Byrd endured horrific torture; his killers chained him to a truck and dragged his physique for 3 miles.
Two views of Laura James’s studio
Laura James’s portray “Not Even Past” (2024) in her Bronx studio
Two current work from the American Historical past collection, “Not Even Past” and “Inheritance” (each 2024), are daring creative interventions that straight resist current right-wing backlash towards essential race idea and instructing the historical past of racism in the USA. “Not Even Past” confronts the dismissive sentiment that Black folks should merely “move on” from slavery and systemic racism. The titular allusion to the William Faulkner quote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past,” is made visceral by the portray’s brutal and unforgettable imagery.
A big tree stands on the middle of the portray, its branches bearing the our bodies of lynched Black folks. Under, a dense pack of plain-clothed White spectators gathers on the suitable, whereas Ku Klux Klan members in pointed white robes stand to the left. One determine hangs from a department, engulfed in flames. On the backside of the composition, rows of gravestones bear the names of murdered Black folks: Sandra Bland (1987–2015), Breonna Taylor (1993–2020), and Sonya Massey (1988–2024), amongst many others. Some names, like Trayvon Martin (1995–2012) and Tamir Rice (2002–14), are instantly recognizable to the general public as a result of their murders galvanized the motion for Black lives, whereas others like Lizzie Dur (1882–95), whose demise did spark protest on the time, have light from broader public reminiscence.
On the high of the portray, scenes of police brutality unfold. A Black particular person lies wounded and dying on the road as an onlooker movies, and one other is shot a number of occasions whereas fleeing. A bunch of incarcerated males in black and white striped jumpsuits is chained collectively, whereas a guard holds a shotgun at their heads — a transparent reference to chain gangs, teams of imprisoned folks exploited for his or her labor. Close by, a jail cell underscores how mass incarceration stays linked to those ongoing histories of racial oppression.
{Photograph} of Laura James’s portray “Inheritance” (2024) in her Bronx studio
In distinction to the outside scenes in “Not Even Past,” James’s “Inheritance” (2024) takes place inside a home inside. A rich White household’s lounge with mild inexperienced partitions turns into the positioning of a fraught racial encounter within the portray: Black individuals are laboring inside the residence whereas the White householders are at leisure. This work is a part of James’s bigger apply of representing Black ladies home employees to honor their labor and expose Black labor’s relationship with White leisure. The scene already evokes discomfort as a result of racialized historical past of home work, however nearer inspection reveals different disturbing particulars. The lady cleansing the window and the person tending the grandmother’s toes are shackled with a ball and chain, a person serving drinks wears a muzzle, and one other girl, lacking a foot, balances precariously on a chair to wash a mirror. These surrealist parts are rooted in histories of enslavement and applied sciences of abuse on the plantation, whereas the symbols of torture recommend slavery and its enduring legacy. The portray means that the previous of exploited labor shouldn’t be but absolutely previous. On the high of the canvas, wallpaper panels depict slave ship imagery, with Black our bodies tightly organized within the ship’s maintain. All of us inherit this scene of racialized domesticity, and James compels us to face it.
Laura James’s studio
Left: Element view of Laura James’s studio; proper: Laura James in her studio
James attracts inspiration from folks artwork traditions wealthy in vibrant shade and storytelling. Just like Ethiopian devotional portray, her compositions function a number of narrative scenes directly in several elements of the composition. James’s simplified figural types, shiny palette, communal scenes, and unapologetically political themes additionally align with the legacy of Mexican muralism. These visible storytelling methods powerfully convey Black American histories and join them to international struggles, making even probably the most painful narratives extra accessible to broader publics.
Collectively, these work present accessible entry factors into conversations about race, reminiscence, and justice which can be actively being suppressed in our colleges and establishments in the course of the Trump period, making them best visible instruments for resisting censorship and fostering essential training. Certainly, James speaks of her work with urgency: “The paintings serve as a record of what happened. And we do not want this to happen again.” She continues, “I do not have all the answers, but I refuse to look away. I am bearing witness to what happened.” Most of the scenes that James paints come straight from historical past books she reads, like Lest We Overlook: The Passage from Africa to Slavery to Emancipation (1997). As academic curricula are more and more Whitewashed, James’s work insist on remembering and reckoning with the previous as a dwelling and needed a part of our historical past. These works function visible anchors for discussing the inextricability of anti-Blackness from US historical past. There may be no such factor as impartial portray in a world indelibly marked by racial violence.
