Melana Bass is a UW senior and winner of the First Wave Scholars "Artist of the Year" award.
The works are multimedia portraits of black women, done in a way that shatters the dry, traditional notion of what a portrait is. They are images of black women as colossi, towering over cities; transformed into birds or growing out of (or perhaps into) the soil; as complex, uncontainable forces, rich with magic and political weight.
The art was unveiled on Saturday, April 23, when the UW’s Red Gym pulsated with a boisterous celebration of art, radical politics and black womanhood — the opening reception for Black Girl Everything.
The exhibit, displayed in the Class of 1973 Gallery through April 29, is the first solo show from Chicago native Melana Bass, a graduating senior in the UW’s prestigious First Wave Hip-Hop program and recipient of that program’s “Artist of the Year” award.
Her show consists of six paintings — three on each of the room’s long walls, each approximately 5’6’’ by 3’6’’. Through Bass’ eyes, black women are giants and shape shifters. “As First Wave scholars we are guiding forces that see over everyone, but we are simultaneously black students on a predominantly white campus,” Bass says. One piece in particular evokes this: a woman in stark relief against a swirling dark background, her body looming over a city at night. She is simultaneously a guardian and an exile
As shape shifters, black women emerge from Bass’ works in unexpected and electrifying ways. “We can do everything,” says Bass, “we can become anyone.” In one work, four screen-printed heads morph into inflatable hot-air balloons soaring into a sky the color of ripe corn. In another, three women are being blown into existence through a looking glass by an owl, like genies from a bottle.
This giant/shapeshifter theme received affirmation during the exhibit’s opening event, thanks to Bass’ excellent curatorial abilities. She invited performers from both Madison and Detroit who addressed the experiences of black women through a variety of creative media, including poems about black women being killed while in police custody (“How easy it is to eat through black women with your weapons, your wars?” said one poet). The evening also included original hip-hop, classic blues and monologues, and the only thing more captivating than the steady stream of fantastic black women absolutely killing it on the mic was how they began collaborating with one another.
Songs begun by one woman were taken up by the others, and backup singers formed out of nowhere. They encouraged and supported each other in solidarity, creative and politicized souls fighting for equal rights.
These women are saying, in no uncertain terms, “Do not fuck with me.”
“Everybody listen/it’s a black woman speaking,” went the lyrics to a song written by Madison hip-hop artist Vella Hookz especially for Black Girl Everything, and listen we did.
In light of the current conversations around race occurring throughout our country (and palpably within our own small city), the portraits in Black Girl Everything serve as a visual manifesto for black women to embrace their histories, their strength and their personal magic. For those of us who are not black women, they say something along the lines of “you need to shut up and listen.”
As Melana Bass graduates from the UW this spring, let’s hope she continues to create art like this. Her art is a testament to the success of the First Wave program and provides a critical opportunity to engage in the artistic and political dialogue our society needs.
