Pamela Sneed

On a black wall is a compilation of works of portraits by Pamela Sneed with a white neon sign in the middle. The installation resembles a family album and Sneed has a relationship to each image. The watercolors, acrylics and the untitled neon haiku are all very new/made this year in 2022. The black collages were made a few years ago and are titled the mourning series. Pamela writes: “I believe they were triggered by a police killing of a Black person. All works here represent some aspect of mourning and my attempts to make visible people who have been advertently and inadvertently erased. Part of healing is visibility /bringing the hidden and buried to light. Most recently added to this collection is an image of Jayland Walker a young 25 year old black man shot over 90 times by police over a traffic stop in Akron Ohio. The image is on the outside lower left. There are also several watercolors that depict several of the Black People murdered at tops Buffalo supermarket in May 2022 by a white supremacist At times they are rendered in color and at times they are rendered in dark blue and black to depict a ghostly quality. The remaining images are of young Black male poets who were felled by the AIDS crisis in the early 90’s. They were all friends and comrades of mine, Whom I came of age with. Two with a purple background are of poet Craig Harris who worked on the frontlines of the AIDS crisis at GMHC. The other poets represented are one a close friend Donald Woods with his peers Poet Assotto Saint whose work will be reissued next year by Nightboat press. There are several images of Essex Hemphill, Colin Robinson and images of them together. It has been part of my life’s work as an interdisciplinary artist a poet and artist to render these important artists/so none are forgotten.”

Pamela Sneed, Installation of selected works from the following series:
“Tops,” 2022
“When My Brothers Were Alive and the Sun Shone,” 2022
“The Mourning Series,” 2018
“Untitled Haiku,” 2022
Watercolor, acrylic, neon
Dimensions variable

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