Zoe Charlton: 'Imitation of a Life' to Open at the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts

Written by Maurice Coppersmith Tuesday, 11 August 2009 20:14

WILIMNGTON, DE.- The Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts announces Zoë Charlton’s solo exhibition titled Imitation of a Life, on view in the Dupont I Gallery from August 14 through November 15, 2009. Zoë Charlton’s interests in gender and class fuel her drawings that explore social and racial interactions, and evaluate historical and contemporary visual prejudices. She draws and redraws characters in order to re-contextualize them, depicting them in strange and funny moments. Her women are purposefully posed in sexually suggestive postures which more than hint at the characterization of black women in slavery and the Jim Crow South as sexually aggressive, often given as the raison d’etre  for white men’s inability to ignore them. The mixing of accessories such as cheerleader skirts, fanny packs, and muffs with nudity further accentuates the sexual nature of the images, recalling pornographic imagery.

Zoё Charlton creates artworks in drawing, video, and sculpture that examine issues of gender and race. For her exhibition at the DCCA, she has concentrated on a series of drawings and a video that deal with the issue of “passing,” inspired by the 1934 film, Imitation of Life, in which the main character, Peola, longs for the privileges associated with whiteness. Each of Charlton’s drawings centers on a hooded woman who confronts the viewer with a sexually suggestive pose. The artist states, “In my drawings, this passing is made extreme by the attempted camouflaging of the women with Klan hoods. The provocatively posed women are further costumed in other clothing that functions to distract from their passing . . . ” For the artist, passing is seen as a complicated act that involves the use of gendered, sexualized, and “racialized” objects and poses. Charlton’s images are both deftly drawn and delicate in character, contrasting with their startling subject matter and making them purposefully disquieting.

Charlton addresses the issue of passing through the eyes of a politicized 21st-century artist. As a black woman, she explores identity through a political viewpoint that is informed not only by the Civil Rights movement, but also the writings of important critical theorists such as Simone de Beauvoir, who scrutinized the treatment of women throughout history in The Second Sex; Roland Barthes, who examined meaning in language and symbols; and Jean Baudrillard, who analyzed the erasing of distinctions between classes, genders, and races.

The entire issue of passing of a black person pretending to be white seems archaic, but, in fact, until the 2000 US census, American citizens had to identify themselves as being of only one race; they could not be multi-racial.  Many black citizens of light skin tone continued to live double lives, to pass as white, at least until the end of the 20^th century, obviously seeking the privileges that would be afforded in a society that prized the lightness of skin tone.  Although the civil rights movement supported pride in ethnic heritage, those who passed as white were generally not “outed” by family and friends.  The complexity of living a secret life, of not attending family funerals, of only visiting family at night, has been the subject of a number of books, both fiction and non-fiction.  In the contemporary world, the prevailing significance of the issue of skin color is evident in the work of artists such as filmmaker Spike Lee and painter Robert Colescott.

Zoë Charlton (BALTIMORE, MD) holds an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin and has held solo exhibitions of her work in venues including the Conner Contemporary Art and The Watkins Gallery, Washington, DC; Center for the Arts, Towson University, Towson, MD; University of North Texas Art Gallery, Denton, TX; and Clementine Gallery, New York, NY. She has also exhibited in a number of group exhibitions around the country including the Nathan Larramendy Gallery in Ojai, CA, and the Spelman College Museum of Fine Arts in Atlanta, GA. She is the recipient of numerous awards including the Mellon Fund Artist Grant, the Elizabeth Scott Fellowship, and the Camille Hanks Cosby Fellowship.

Visit The Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts at : http://www.thedcca.org/

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