Linking the Past and Present: How Two Artists Examine the History of Racism in America

A trained print-maker, Andry uses the graphic form of her medium to confront the viewer with the visual manifestation of the ideologies behind racist policies and practices. Belying the ugliness of the ideas, the images are beautiful: colorful and multi-layered with intricate textures that draw us in.

Andry often reverses the roles of races in her images. Taking the ideology out of context in this way forces us to step into another's shoes and to face the faulty logic behind presumptions and race. For this exhibition, Andry has created a large-scale wallpaper installation in addition to a new body of prints.

Charleston-based Colin Quashie mines the darker parts of American history, digitally manipulating archival images to give them added context and more nuanced meanings. Many of his subjects will be easily recognizable, and Quashie plays on our knowledge of and comfort with the figures to subvert our understanding of them.

By overlaying the tools of slavery on these iconic figures, he makes apparent the impact slavery had and racism continues to have on their lives and legacies. Louis Armstong blows a set of shackles instead of his trumpet. Harriet Tubman wears rose-colored glasses made of shackles. Super-imposed with his legendary false-teeth, American hero George Washington suddenly takes on a more sinister tone.

Despite being visual manifestations of such powerful issues, Quashie and Andry’s images remain nuanced, reflecting the fact that racism and its impact is not always black-and-white. Throughout their work, we see that the legacy of slavery and its underlying ideology continues to rear its head in unexpected ways. It's through artists like Quashie and Andry using all the tools at their disposal, like humor, subversion, and unflinching honesty, to reflect its complicated impact that we can begin to come to terms with and dismantle this ever-present force.

Katrina Andry: Over There and Here is Me and Me and Colin Quashie: Linked are on view at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art from August 23 to December 7, 2019.