When Nina Simone released “Four Women” on her 1966 “Wild is the Wind” album, it struck a nerve dissecting four stereotypes of African American women in society. From Aunt Sarah – one of four characters – depicting strength amid enslavement, to Safronia, the mixed race representing two communities to Sweet Thing, the prostitute who satisfied both races with sexual gratification, and the final woman, known by her vicious and acerbic nature due to generations of oppression, Simone was on to something society continues to deal with today. In 2000, rapper Talib Kweli and producer Hi-Tek released a version of Simone’s song entitled “For Women” on their debut album, “Train of Thought.” Ten years later, two local Philadelphia artists have unleashed an exhibition that visually captures the essence of Simone’s message in “Four Women.”
On September 17th, Vivant Art Collection hosted “For Women,” an exhibition that showcased the works of Tatyana Fazlalizadeh and Lilian Cotton. The paintings, though in varied forms, represented themes of strength, sexuality, abuse and identity.
One art work, “Black Hair and Flowers,” by Fazlalizadeh was one of several captivating images displayed that night. The artist elaborates on the painting:
“I was thinking about black hair and how there’s always controversy about natural versus perm versus different styles and how you wear your hair [and] how that affects who you are, which I don’t agree with at all.”
The artist further shares her inspiration for the paintings:
“In Ethiopia, in the Omo Valley, the people there just decorate themselves with flowers. They paint their faces and they don’t do it for any other reasons except just to do it, and it’s just really, really beautiful. I did another painting of myself where I kind of decorated myself in the same way and I really loved the whole flower theme. So I wanted to apply that to this.”
As part of a series Fazlalizadeh is creating to celebrate the unique beauty of women, which revolves around the theme of different hair types, textures and styles, she will be connecting different women through her decorative flower them, which is the sanguine aspect of the women’s piece.
The morbid part emerges in “Conceal Her,” a painting of a young black woman attempting to mask her face with make-up.
“This is about domestic violence,” explains Fazlalizadeh. “It’s about trying to hide the abuse. Her looking at the viewer is what I like about the painting, you have her teary-eyed while she’s looking at the viewer and putting on make up to hide it.”
And what’s the inspiration behind this budding artist’s paintings? She responds:
“I like to do portraits a lot because I like people and I like to tell stories through people like this painting is telling a story or expressing an idea or making a statement about something. And I try to challenge myself to see if I can express an idea or statement through a portrait and so that’s the same thing through all of these, each individual painting has its own theme.”
And Cotton, the other artist, adds her own to the themes. Although her paintings are slightly different in form, she also explores issues of abuse, identity and general struggles of women. Two of her paintings, “This is my Identity” and “To One Means All,” part of a series she has created called “Beauty Behind The Wounds,” run along the subject of women and hair.
She elaborates: “One of the things that I started to notice is that because I am an African- American female, people don’t see me as a female, they still see me as my color.”
But through one of her paintings, Cotton admits: “It doesn’t matter what color or race you are, you’re still going to go through the same things especially if you’ve been sexually abused [or] physically abused, violence doesn’t have a color.”
In one striking painting entitled “Self-Portrait,” this inventive artist captures the emotional struggle of a woman through massive amounts of hair moving in all directions. Her inspiration for this particular work travels across the ocean.
“During my senior thesis I started looking at different topics of women and abuse and survivors and what really intrigued me was women in Darfur, what they had to go through, were really horrific. Just reading those types of stories was where my concept of “Beauty Behind the Wounds” [came from].”
This exhibition demonstrates that art has no one form. Just as Nina Simone was able to convey a message so vividly through her song, so could it be equally used, effectively through painting, to inspire, empower and educate.
For more from these two artists, visit: www.tlynnfaz.com and www.lilliancotton.com