Atlanta (June 27, 2008) – In light of the recent Jackson Fine Art show celebrating the Civil Rights Movement with photographer Bruce Davidson and paying honor to the critically acclaimed exhibitions at The High Museum – Road to Freedom and After 1968 – Jackson Fine Art continues to consider race and relationships in the upcoming show Four Women curated by Charles Guice, owner and curator of Charles Guice Contemporary in Oakland, California.

 

Asking the question – how has the dialogue about ethnicity, family, class, gender and sexuality changed in the last 50 years, Four Women showcases the work of Kianga Ford, Jessica Ingram, Carrie Mae Weems and Deborah Willis as it investigates their perspectives on the complex relationship between family and race – specifically its ongoing evolution in the South.

 

The resulting dialogue between these four artists draws from the strength of the narrative; whether it is Ford’s “Counting,” an installation of 12 chalkboard pieces that outline the changing definition of race in the United States, photographs of sites of Civil Rights era events swallowed into a southern landscape that comprise Ingram’s compelling series “A Civil Rights Memorial,” Gullah folk truths for safeguarding a home in Weems’ “House” or the notions of pregnancy captured in Willis’ “Mother Wit,” Four Women informs us that the definition of family fits within wide boundaries, that race is little more than a construct and that there is always another way of seeing. For truth lies within and outside the frame alike, and without considering both as a possible reality, we can never truly understand one another.

 

Four Women opens July 18 with an artists’ reception from 6 to 8 p.m. and runs through August 30. Curator, Charles Guice and artists Deborah Willis and Jessica Ingram will be present on Saturday, July 19 for an informal Artist Talk at 11 a.m. Works from Hank Willis Thomas’ Unbranded will also be on display in the Viewing Room.