The world of art in the United States has not always made room for Black people or people of color. But now, artists like Kaila Austin are working towards creating art depicting Black people and including them in the long history of art. Kaila Austin’s new show, “Saints and Icons”, is now on display in the Hank and Dolly’s Gallery at the Harrison Center. As an artist, Austin’s goal in creating this show was to “prescribe humanity and even superhuman qualities to everyday people from the past and present”. She uses portraits of a multitude of different people in order to demonstrate to the audience that all of these people had something in common, that being that “they were at their core, just regular people, figuring out the world that we were all placed into”.

Black (1609), Grease pencil, gold leaf on paper, 12" x 16"

This show is full of beautifully made portraits of Black men and women, and it is also full of a variety of different mediums. Austin says of this use of mixed media that her “goal was to show the same subject matter in a variety of different mediums and debate with [herself] and the viewer how a material can prescribe meaning”. Austin’s use of mixed media in her show “Saints and Icons” creates a compelling and visually fascinating collection of works that urge the viewer to think critically about each piece as well as the show as a whole.

On Motherhood, Oil, charcoal, ink, gold leaf on paper, 6' x 6' Triptych

Kaila Austin began working on this show after completing her piece On Motherhood, pictured above, in 2017. She told me that while working on this piece, she “realized that while [she] was able to create comprehensive stories, [she] wasn’t able to properly reflect [her] skin tone or anyone else’s for that matter”. Due to this realization, Austin embarked on the creation of the show “Saints and Icons” as a way to grasp a better understanding of depicting Black figures in a variety of portraits. Austin feels that she finally created a “small piece of mastery of skin representation” with her piece Madeline, which is pictured below. This piece, as well as all of the work within “Saints and Icons”, is not only beautifully executed in terms of artistry but also tells an incredible story of an artist’s journey

This beautiful show by Kaila Austin will be on display in the Harrison Center’s Hank and Dolly’s gallery through the end of March 2021. “Saints and Icons” is also available online to view and to purchase art. Be sure to check out the work before it’s gone!

Saints & Icons