Jacolby Satterwhite (American, b.1986)
Blessed Avenue, 2018
Two-channel HD color video with sound
RT: 19:18
Jacolby Satterwhite’s Blessed Avenue, now on display in the Smith Gallery, is a part of his Birds in Paradise suite. This work may be considered a posthumous collaboration with his mother, Patricia, who used creative practices such as drawing and singing to cope with her schizophrenia. As a part of the Birds in Paradise suite, much of the imagery is derived from drawings made by Satterwhite’s mother Patricia. Purple is a reoccurring color in Satterwhite’s work, as a presentation of womanism and in particular, the Black femme experience.
In Blessed Avenue, Satterwhite crafts imagined characters, riding on winged creatures, flying over footage of climate disasters. In Satterwhite’s recent monograph, How lovly [sic] is me being as I am, Sasha Bonet notes that in Blessed Avenue, “complacency is a form of S&M between nature and humanity. Here Satterwhite uses fictional characters to exemplify the recreation of slave versus master dynamics in humanity’s relationship with the earth we inhabit.” Various connective cords tether the figures to each other and their environments, within and across the two-channel videos.
Avenue B will be closing March 6th. Therefore, if you would like to stop by and see the video, come to the Smith Gallery in the next two weeks to catch a glimpse of this amazing piece of work!