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Rodney Ewing
Paradise Lost (Henrietta Lacks), 2020
Photo silkscreen on vintage ledger paper, 35.5 x 20.5 inches
Unique, signed, on print
Unframed
Courtesy of the artist
Estimated value: $3,500
Paradise Lost was part of the "Broken Shadows" series, an ongoing series that I began during San Francisco’s 2020 mandatory shelter-in-place order and that broadly references the positives and negatives of the silkscreens I use in my practice. As I was creating one new work every day and a half, the series evolved into a project that allowed me to reuse my large archive of silkscreens to continue the conversations about diaspora, place, and identity—ideas that are central in my practice. As a work in this series, Paradise Lost represents the narrative of Henrietta Lacks, whose body was coopted to advance science without her or her family's permission.
Image courtesy of Wayne Serrano
About the Artist:
Rodney Ewing
Rodney Ewing (b.1964, Baton Rouge, LA) is a visual artist whose drawings, installations, and mixed-media works focus on his need to intersect body and place, memory and fact, and to reexamine human histories, cultural conditions, and trauma. His work has been exhibited at The Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco; The Drawing Center, New York; and most recently at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Ewing is a recipint of a San Francisco Art Commission Individual Artist Grant (2016–20), and his work has recently been included in to the collection of Tufts University Art Gallery, Medford, MA.
As a topic-based artist, Ewing’s interdisciplinary practice involves extensive research of overlooked historical objects, individuals, spaces, and events of the Black Diaspora. His narratives explore and translate the actual and emotional dimensions of these subjects to draw the viewer in toward the piece and immerses them in a reorienting experience of images, words, and ideas. Ewing’s layering of visual elements creates an experience that is unique and nuanced within the context of his prints, sculptures, drawings, and installations. With his work he is creating a platform that requires us to be both present and profound in our observations.
Website: rodneyewing.com
Instagram: @ledette
Venmo: @rodney-ewing
