Almost any Southerner can tell you that there’s not a plot of dirt or stretch of water in these parts that doesn’t carry with it a layered past. Every tossed off oyster shell or scattered blade of sweetgrass is a conduit to memories well before we landed here.
This is resplendently evident in Grounded in Grain, Washed in the Water, the deeply considered, regionally-rooted exhibition presented by two College of Charleston cultural hubs: the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art and the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture. Available through Dec. 5, it displays work at the Halsey’s Deborah A. Chalsty Gallery and at the Avery.
In the presenters’ words, its aim is to explore ancestral narratives and the enduring relationships between land, water, memory and Black life in the American South. To do so, the show converges the work of four accomplished artists of Southern lineage: Corey Alston, Derrick Beasley, Christa David and Maya Freelon.
Elegantly and thoughtfully curated by Lauren Jackson Harris, the exhibition as a whole casts its two thematic natural elements in a contemporary, contemplative light as it awakens the ancestors.
Sweetgrass is gathered, smoothed and shaped, often with a pristine linearity. Oyster shells take new formations. The yield of the Southern soil, its peanuts and peaches and pecans, are explored with colorful dynamism.
Rooted in the South
Take the work of Derrick Beasley, a Durham, N.C.-based, self-taught artist who mines the stuff of his Southern upbringing with an eye toward uplifting community. At the Halsey, the artist mounts works of sculpture, photography and video to gain access to place and past.
Two large-scale sculptural works, which set the tone for the show, feature oysters from Harkers Island, N.C. Steward’s Armor, a black-robed, shell-winged looming figure, crossed bundles of maiden grass at its feet, as if bidding us across a metaphorical river to another realm.
Ricoprocene Portal, a human-size cement dome of glistening black ceramic tiles on a mound of sand and oysters, may well offer the entry there. On a nearby wall, a video projects black-and-white footage with men in a boat traversing Southern waterways as they grapple with their present-day roles.
This segues to the work of New York- and Atlanta-based artist Christa David. By way of painting, collage and assemblage, the artist explores identity via the stuff of the South, placing herself prominently in the work.
A trio of collage-and-acrylic works, some things arrive already knowing me, features the artist posed in a white cotton nightgown, head cast reflectively, before a sky blue background. In each, a pick of Georgia hallmark crops — the peanuts, peaches and pecans — rain down. Two others, titled The Ground Still Knows My Name, are dirt-filled fabric-covered baskets, red ribbons spilling to the floor, calling to mind those once used by the enslaved who worked the fields.
Then there are the regionally iconic sweetgrass baskets. In the adjacent gallery space, a straightforward foray into the tradition centers on several works of fifth-generation weaver Alston, who is renowned for shaping these time-honored practices into sculptural, at times outsized works. Also on view are loaned pieces from the Avery’s Sweetgrass Collection, some from makers not yet known, and others from renowned artisans including Mary A. Jackson and Nakia Wigfall. A looping video rotates images from yesteryear weavers.
Freelon’s sculptural work, a mass of undulating tissue, bleeds its brillant colors up the gallery’s library wall. It’s a prelude to the main display of the Durham-based artist’s work at the Avery. There, suspended from the center of the ceiling, one radiates out like a rainbow-dripping nimbus. Punctuating the walls are delicate, wafting, hue-stained sheaths featuring also archival family photographs, faint apparitions on the fragile paper.
Freelon’s ephemeral medium offers stark contrast to the staying power of the abiding memories forever etched in our wending rivers and well-toiled earth. When artists of this caliber lay their hands and hearts on our Southern terrain, they chart enthralling new inroads to its many dormant stories still waiting to be heard.
Saturday symposium
On Sept. 26 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., the Halsey will present Making and Remembering, a free symposium on the exhibition. Beasley, David and Freelon will join a panel discussion with the curator. A screening of the film High Water, directed by Tyquan Morton, will be followed by a brief question-and-answer session with Charleston poet laureate AsiahMae. It will also include a panel on collecting Black art moderated by Arun Drummond. Simons Center for the Arts Recital Hall, 54 St. Philip St.
If you want to go: The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art is located at 161 Calhoun St. The Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture is located at 125 Bull St. More: halsey.charleston.edu.
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