The Trenton City Museum at Ellarslie exhibits the work by three artists melding African and American art.
By: Amy Brummer
A swath of autumn color teems with shapes, patterns and forms. They pulse around silhouetted figures frozen in an eternal dance. On closer inspection, the lush pigments have the appearance of velvety suede, absorbing the light with a soft finish.
Once a viewer is drawn in by the prints of Wendell Brooks, it is difficult to avert one’s gaze. The images are bold and arresting, but rendered with an intricate, hypnotic delicacy. Mr. Brooks, a master printmaker whose works are in the permanent collection of the National Museum of Art of the Smithsonian Institution, the Library of Congress and the New Jersey State Museum, is showing his work at the Trenton City Museum at Ellarslie for the first time since his retrospective in 1995.
The show, titled A Perfect Blend of African and American Art, exhibits Mr. Brook’s work alongside the sculpture of Michael Gyampo and Michael Gyampo Jr. As individuals, the artists have distinct styles informed by their personal histories. Viewed together, the artists’ work creates a dialogue about the manifestation of African forms in contemporary American art.
"They are coming from different places," says curator Brian Hill, "but the end result is that they have created something for us to discuss. If Wendell or Michael or Michael Jr. could actually speak that language, they wouldn’t be doing sculpture or printmaking. They are discussing something that can’t be spoken."
Born in Aliceville, Ala., in 1939, Mr. Brooks, a professor of art at The College of New Jersey, is part of a generation that has experienced firsthand the struggle for black Americans to combat racism and achieve civil rights. Mr. Gyampo, a native of Ghana, emigrated to this country in 1987 to join the teaching and production staff at Johnson Atelier in Hamilton. He brings with him an intimate knowledge of modern African culture and the complex politics that have emerged from the fallout of colonialism and an emerging global economy. His son, Michael Jr., is a freshman at Princeton High School and has been working in cast bronze since age 11. As a first-generation American teen-ager, his work is informed by both worlds, touching on subjects that range from sports figures to African myth.
In Mr. Brooks’ prints, the African influences are both overt and hidden. With an undergraduate degree in art education and a master’s in printmaking from Indiana University, he is well versed in the history of art. He has been strongly influenced by African masks and sculpture, and that imagery is clearly present in the forms that dominate several of his prints.
"What a lot of my work is about is rising above my circumstances," Mr. Brooks says. "So if you are talking about black art, I have no idea what it is, although I do call myself a black artist.
"I studied African art and a whole lot of stuff, and finally when I got to be 50, 60 years old, it came to me that when I look at myself, I am a black man, and it is just what it is. And if I just relax and be that, then that is what will happen in my work. But coming from the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s and all of that, one could say that it was difficult to rise above the circumstances, so I made that a way of life."
Being a black man in America has had a profound influence on his process, leading him on a spiritual path that empowers him to achieve his goals. In African religious art, an object is not merely a representation of the divine but is sacred in and of itself, imbued with the power of the creator through the hand that crafted it. Through visualization, Mr. Brooks taps into a greater metaphysical energy and channels it into the razor-sharp edge that he uses to create his stencils. From there, he builds his print, experimenting with colors and forms until it meets his standards.
"The process is, you might say, religious or spiritual in a sense," Mr. Brooks says. "My objective is to connect to the power of the creator. I do what I call a moving meditation. I like to think that my work is similar to African Art in a sense. For example, I noticed that (Michael Gyampo) had some fertility pieces in (the exhibit). Primitive African tribes believed that if you danced around the fire with these fertility masks, they would be more productive, or if you initiated a boy into manhood he would become a man. Now today a person may laugh at a thing like that, but the mind has great powers."
Mr. Gyampo’s "Fertility Figures" are the most traditionally African of all of his sculptures. They mirror traditional fertility sculptures with stylized, exaggerated heads, pointed breasts and linear bodies. His wood sculptures are derivative of African mask-making traditions.
"I try not to disturb the natural sculptural image of the wood," says Mr. Gyampo, who has had solo shows at the Extension Gallery in Mercerville and Just Art in Piscataway. "I usually use any existing part of the wood. I scarcely throw away a branch sticking out. I will use it for an arm or whatever I think it will relate to the image of the work. The wood usually leads me toward so many ideas and I become selective with what I want to portray."
Mr. Gyampo carves only with hand tools. But the wood sculptures are distinctly contemporary in their subject matter, touching on political and social issues faced on the African content.
A cherry wood sculpture carved in 1990 stands almost 5-feet high, giving the appearance of a totem pole. The three figures bound in chains emerge from its surface like trapped spirits struggling to break free.
"It was the days when there was a lot of tension in South Africa," says Mr. Gyampo, whose work has been exhibited extensively in Ghana, where he served as the assistant secretary to the national arts council from 1979-1980. "They were the last days of Nelson Mandela, when he was in prison. I carved this with him in mind, in terms of a freedom fighter trying to liberate his people, so I call this ‘Justice Where Are You?’ and it is mostly dedicated to those who are fighting a cause for freedom."
These socio-political sentiments also cross over into his bronze work as well, mixing representational symbolism and symbolic abstraction to comment on contemporary struggles in Africa. The work "Time Will Tell" addresses the issues of divisionism in Africa. It depicts the continent as jagged pieces, with a shackled hand holding a ram’s horn emerging from it. The pieces that make up the land have the appearance of tectonic plates, ready to shift and pull apart with any provocation.
His piece "Get Up Stand Up" also uses Akoben, the ram’s horn, symbolizing vigilance and wariness, set above Na Mawu, a crossed shape with four rounded feet.
"I use the traditional Ghanaian symbols," he says. "It is like a cross with four circles that means I wouldn’t die until God dies. If you are out there fighting for your nation or your tribe or your community, you have spiritual notion behind you and you are not going to be defeated because you will not die until God dies, and God doesn’t die."
Mr. Gyampo’s son, Michael Gyampo Jr., also works in bronze. With exhibitions of his work at Johnson Atelier and Lincoln Center in Manhattan, in addition to receiving a 10-week scholarship to Moore College of Art in Philadelphia, Michael Jr. has embarked on an impressive career.
In keeping with his family’s Ghanaian heritage, he draws on an Ashanti folk tale with West African origins in his sculpture, "Man of Wisdom." It depicts a man with a pot strapped across his chest standing at the base of a spare, crooked branch.
"When I was growing up, I was told a lot of stories about Anansi the spider," Michael says. "He wanted to be the smartest person in the world, and the only person to have wisdom. So he collected all of the wisdom in the world and put it in a pot. He was going to put it far up in the tree but he had the pot on his stomach instead of his back, and when he climbed up the tree the pot got crushed and it busted. That’s why everybody has wisdom."
To create the sculpture, he forms a wire structure, then fleshes it out with clay. From there, he makes a rubber mold, which is filled with wax. This is cast in bronze, and then the wax is melted out. This method, also used by his father in his bronze work, is called the lost-wax process.
This is the method he uses to create his other sculptures as well. They depict athletes, engaged in sports such basketball, football and track. In one room of the exhibit, they stand in front of Mr. Brooks’ prints, pairing the one-dimensional with the three-dimensional, the seasoned artist with an emerging talent. Even with so many years between them, the two artists share a common ground in their inspiration. They both capture the tension of sparring boxers. An image of an elated dance is contrasted with the sculpture of a runner in motion. It is pairings like these that make the exhibit so provocative, raising questions about the iconography, its ability to transcend age and experience.
Like his father, Michael also experiments with abstract forms. His "Ginger Kingdom" contains several figures cast from whole ginger pieces. The ginger is transformed from a bulbous root to polychromed figures with an air of ancient royalty.
"I was looking at it and I thought it would be a good idea to make it into people," he says. "It has a face, kind of like hair, and I was thinking how I could make a whole society kind of thing, and it came to me like a kingdom, and I put it all together with different colors and it turned out pretty cool. The other (sculptures) are pretty much from my American background, but this has an African kind of look to it, and I think that’s a good thing because it’s not all based in one thing."
Through examining these artists’ changes, looking at their different explorations in materials, or in form or style, similarities emerge. They are present in a subtle way, a common heartbeat in a myriad of forms. The three artist all seem to be hearing that pulse, even as they dance to their own drum.
A Perfect Blend of African and American Art is on view at the Trenton City Museum at Ellarslie, Cadwalader Park, Trenton, through Feb. 23. Michael Gyampo will give a gallery talk Jan. 25, 1 p.m. Wendell Brooks will give a lecture and slide presentation Feb. 1, 1 p.m. Hours: Tues.-Sat. 11 a.m-3 p.m., Sun. 1-4 p.m. For information, call (609) 989-3632. On the Web: www.ellarslie.org

