Seeing and hearing history

In her mission statement, seasonal Vineyarder Daryl Royster Alexander says, “Art sets so many tasks, and a primal one is to be heard, to challenge, and to engage. I take that fight and color to my work.” We can see this in her new pieces at the Granary Gallery.

Alexander states, “Since the founding of the United States of America 250 years ago, we continue to confront some old truths about our country. The Declaration of Independence states that all men are created equal, but the founders later added fine print to declare that an enslaved person of African descent counted as 60 percent of a man.” Alexander digs into the concept of freedom in relation to her work, saying, “I wanted to take a look at those people [of African descent] who were always a part of the American story, even back to the Conquistadors—who started the whole process of enslavement in the New World.”

Alexander has recently completed a set of pastel portraits of three Black men and related works featuring only fragments of their faces—a set of eyes through which we “see” history, and of their mouths from which we “hear” the testimony of what happened to them. Depicted in warm hues, Alexander expertly uses her pastels to sculpt the men’s faces, giving them a real, breathing intensity.

This intensity is appropriate, given each man’s story—all of which relate to enslavement. There is Juan de Pareja, who was the property of 17th-century Spanish court painter Diego Velázquez for 20 years. Once free, Pareja used the skills he’d acquired assisting Velázquez to become a notable painter in his own right, with his work hanging in the Museo del Prado. Pareja looks directly out at us with quiet confidence, speaking to his accomplishments despite adversity.

There is also Sengbe Pieh (also known as Joseph Cinqué), depicted as a young man gazing off into the distance with a soulful look. He was born around 1814 in the village of Mani in present- day Sierra Leone, West Africa, where he was a rice farmer, trader, and father of three. Pieh was captured and shipped with other Africans for sale in Cuba. While aboard the Amistad, Pieh led a revolt. The Africans later won their freedom in a trial that reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

Alexander shares, “I thought he was a good person to represent how perilous it was in Africa to just be walking around and having been stolen away, never to see his family again.”

The artist depicts Frederick Douglass as a young man with a piercing countenance that immediately conveys the great orator’s power and importance in the Abolitionist cause.

Alexander used one of the many images of the man, who, she says, “was one of the most photographed people of his age. He used his story [of escaping bondage] to talk about the basic injustice and immorality of owning another human being. His intellect shone through everything he said.”

There are also two beautifully adorned offerings to the Mother God Yemanjá: one assembled from precious and semiprecious gemstones, and the other from various beads, including ones from Africa, and vintage buttons. Alexander explains, “Yemanjá’s powers are cast over oceans and rivers, women and children.” The pieces pick up on the show’s theme because Yemanjá migrated with millions of human beings who were forced to the New World. The goddess survived, though, re-emerging in the religions of Candomblé, Santería, and Voudun in Brazil, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Haiti. Alexander adds, “The transatlantic slave trade syncretized Yemanjá with the Virgin Mary of the Catholic Church—in effect, hiding her in plain sight.”

The artist also works in oil, offering three-quarter-length paintings, including a striking one of Harriet Tubman as a young woman who escaped to freedom at 27. “Harriet Tubman is an avatar of faith, determination, and freedom,” Alexander writes in her wall label. She returned repeatedly for family and friends to bring people out of bondage and tell others how to escape.

Perhaps a far lesser-known fact is Tubman’s role in the Civil War. Alexander explains, “Her deep knowledge of the Delmarva region [which included the majority of the state of Delaware and parts of the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Eastern Shore of Virginia], led to Tubman becoming the first woman to command a Civil War expedition that freed over 700 human beings.”

Alexander also includes a portrait of an anonymous cotton picker. With strong arms, she carries the fruits of her labor in a large sack on her back. The image is inspired by Winslow Homer’s 1876 “The Cotton Pickers.” Although not an enslaved woman, the artist shares, “Yet she’s still in the field picking cotton. Slavery ended in 1863, but a different form persisted for 100 years.”

Alexander paints the bottoms of all the works white, which seems to be actively “erasing” the figures and speaks to her concern about what is happening to the history of Black people in America today. She says, “I think we’re in some troubled waters here. Freedom often feels like fragments these days, with historical facts sanitized or revised. Ancestors become ‘servants.’ Heroic figures, male and female, are whited out. Can we as a people be erased? Hardly. The people will prevail.”

Alexander hopes viewers will “think about what has been done to various people who have come to this country and how it is that the answer has been to manipulate and erase what they have had to go through in their time. We cannot airbrush what is American history. What is happening now is another sin.”

Daryl Royser Alexander’s art is on view at the Granary Gallery in West Tisbury.