A recent collection of contemporary artwork by painter Robert Peterson is attracting new visitors to the Wichita Art Museum — especially young people. The exhibition, “Somewhere in America” centers around Black culture. It’s the first major installation for Peterson — featuring nearly 50 paintings of African American families and people in everyday moments. For this edition of In The Mix, Carla Eckels speaks with Peterson about his portraits.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
So many Black men are in your collection, and I'm curious as to why you decided to do that. Could you also explain the halos that I'm seeing over some of the portraits?
I feel like when you visit museums and galleries across the nation or actually around the world, you don't really see enough paintings of Black men, Black boys, Black women, Black young females, and so I wanted to change that ... we deserve equal space where we are able to be represented in a way that we are respected, we are admired and we are looked up to.
And so you'll see the crowns — which are durags. My durags represent crowns. And then you'll see the halo, which is usually done in diamond dust or glitter, because the religious figures — the Kings, the Queens, the Royal people that you see in those paintings were European and Caucasian. We're Kings and Queens too, and we deserve that.
The great thing about this show is that the Wichita Art Museum has given me space to highlight 58 ... different Black people, representing these 46 works. When you come in here, no matter who you are, you're going to see yourself. I think representation is important, and so I'm grateful for the opportunity.
The people that are represented, many of them, are looking back at you. I mean, you really see them looking at you.
Well, I was always told when I was younger that, to see in someone's soul is through their eyes, like, that's how you can find out who a person is. And so, I want you to be able to connect with these people. They're looking at you while you're looking at them, and so you can be able to have those conversations and connect.
It starts off with one idea that I have, and then after getting to know them and [talking] to them a little bit before we do the photo shoot, it's like, "Okay, we've got a different direction. We need your story to be told too, because there's somebody else that may need to see that or connect with that." ...When they go in, they feel safe, they feel seen, they feel heard — and ... that's the goal with this work.
It's just incredible. The details of the faces, the earrings ... even the cuts in her jeans. I mean, it's just so many details. Robert ... it’s all just you ... sitting there ... sketching. I mean, do you say, “Oh, let me go ahead and I'm going to paint it this way.”
It's about having fun, being loose and being creative and being open; to let the canvas tell you what it wants.
When I sit down ... I have an idea of what I want to do, but I don't ever see the "end result." I see "it" when it's done for the first time. Some artists will sit down and they'll be like, "Okay, this is what it's gonna look like when I'm done." I'm surprised every time it's done. You know, my goal is just to make sure that it looks good. My goal is to make sure it looks natural and unforced.
Well, show me an example of when you started you were going to go in one direction, and then you found yourself going in a different direction.
Yes, so [there] is a guy named Brandon, his story was [similar] with my story. ...Growing up in 80s and 90s, I would spend the summer with my grandmother and my grandfather and they lived in a bad part of Denver, Colorado. ...You were kind of stuck in a two-block radius, because ... where all of the older people lived, and so no violence happened there because nobody wanted [it] to; the gang members didn't want to bring that, gang bangers, drug dealers, pimps — they didn't want to bring that to their mom and dads, their grandparents. And so that was the safe zone.
...In order to see beyond that, in my backyard, my grandmother had the clothing line. And so, I would climb up on top of the clothing line, and that's where you could see all the way out to the Rocky Mountains. ...This is called "somewhere between heaven and earth," because you've seen forever. ...That was my escape, because you get tired of riding your bike or running up and down [those] two blocks. ...When I climbed up on her clothing line, I could look out and ... see the rest of the world. You could see forever, it felt like.
For [Brandon], him being on the East Coast, what he would do is he would climb up [traffic poles]. ...He would climb up there to get a break, to get away, to get up off the street, to relax, to get above the noise. And so it just played out really well that, this story ... represents both of us for different reasons.
I understand that you believe Black folks from one part of the country are different than Black folks from another part of the country.
That is true. …We have, there are so many different walks of life within the Black community, things that move you, that [inspire] you and [help] … you become who you are. I may not have experienced it, so I turned out differently, but the truth is, we're still both Black people. …I wanted to capture as many different sides of what I see [as being] Black or Black life in these works. I wanted to represent as many of us as possible, portrayed with durags on.
What about people that say, “Oh no, that you're not dressed if you go outside with the durag on.”
But those people are probably the same people that are saying that you can't go out in public or go to public schools with, locks or braids or natural hair. I feel like if this is how we want to be seen and represented, let it be, because it is a part of our culture and we shouldn't have to deny ourselves or dumb down who we feel we want to be or how we want to be seen just because of another person's opinion. …Their opinion is just their opinion. It's not reality.
What is the one thing you want people to take away from this exhibit?
I want people to come. I want them to experience and spend time with the work and whatever it is that you take away. That's what you're supposed to take away. I think it's important to not confine them to my idea of … what it says to you.
Just have a good time and know that whatever the paintings say to you is what it's supposed to say. There's nothing right or wrong about it. All that matters is that you connect with it and you walk away feeling like you've seen a good show.
