By Jacqueline Resendiz Morales
Staff Writers
The “Made in Cotton” exhibit, which opened Oct. 25, will continue through Dec. 7 at Cal State Dominguez Hills.
The exhibit focuses on racial politics, the production of cotton and the history of slavery.
The exhibition has pieces from artists Mark Steven Greenfield, Karen Hampton and Raksha Parekh.
Each artist excels in different types of imagery, from using cotton as textiles to ink drawings. The artists decided to use cotton as a look into African American struggle.
On the first day of the exhibit, Greenfield, the artist who is curating the show, talked with guests about his journey and what has inspired him to create art.
He described experiences throughout his life that have shaped the way in which he creates his art, such as traveling to Africa and having a religious, cultural and spiritual experience reflected in his paintings.
His work – and this exhibition – covers difficult subject matter regarding the African American experience. And not everyone has always been comfortable with his work.
“I was being criticized by a specific generation, and I had to respect the fact that some people could not accept it based on their experience,” he said. “For instance, my grandmother, who grew up in Tennessee, could not tolerate it because she was too close to it … (and) my mother said, ‘These things are taboo’.”
But younger generations understood the ground he was trying to cover and was more accepting of challenging subject matter.
“I felt it was a time to take a turn,” he said. “To take the power away from them, you can only take possession of it, and you can only take possession of it if you can change the context enough, so that people engaging in and so my children’s generation can look at it and say that’s an important part of history but that’s not me.”
The show is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday in LaCourte Hall-A107.
