Published Thursday, February 6, 2003
artist says
of race relations
Herald Staff Writer
Emory Biko started making artworks about 10 years ago.
He had little art training other than some school art classes, but didn't believe that would be a deterrent, even if others did.
"When I first got the idea of being an artist, people around me said I couldn't do anything," said the Pittsburgh man, whose works go on display Friday at Valley Arts Guild, Sharon. "I go back to that night when people said I couldn't do anything and convince myself I can do anything I want to."
Biko considers himself a sculptor but he also paints, assembles collages of found objects, carves wood, and works with fabric and metal.
His work relates to being an African American, and he considers himself a student of black history.
His subjects are "whatever moves me" and derive from native African art, personal experience and his thoughts on black culture and American society.
At times brutal, sometimes amusing, Biko, who declined to give his age, honors black culture but decries that segment of it that revels in violence and drugs.
It's an area he's well aware of. Biko is a former crack cocaine addict who claims that art saved his life, said guild Director Jacqueline Millner.
"A lot of his pieces are very in your face," she said. "He's trying to warn children against it (using crack). Don't be fooled in thinking you won't get addicted. You'll do anything you can to get it."
Collages speak of white racism as the cause of self-destructive black lifestyles, Biko said.
Although public lynchings seem to be a thing of the past and blacks can sit anywhere on the bus they like, Biko said he doesn't believe race relations have improved since the time when segregation was legal and white-on-black violence was tacitly approved by white society.
A painting depicts the Statue of Liberty as wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood and holding a burning cross. The tablet in Lady Liberty's other hand reads, "Give me your tired, your poor, but not your Haitians," and Los Angeles police are seen below her beating Rodney King.
The wood and mixed media sculpture "Spirits in the Tree, and Blood on the Road" reflects the belief of some Southern blacks that the spirits of people lynched from trees stay within the tree.
Biko, who runs a museum of artifacts, the African Experience in America, in Pittsburgh, depicts blacks on slave ships and recasts Edward Munch's "The Scream" as a black man in horror over the shooting death of a girl.
He used an expressionistic painting technique for portraits of Frederick Douglass, Dizzy Gillespie, Bob Marley and Tupac Shakur, all based on well-known photographs.
Biko said his favorite work is the papier-mâché sculpture "Mom -- More Dependable Than Maytag." It's shows his mother, rosary beads dangling from her neck, using a washboard to wash clothes in a bathtub.
The sculpture " 'Twas the Night Before Easter" depicts a girl getting her hair done. It's amusing at first glance, but also shows the agony she is going through as her overbearing mother applies hair dressing with a hot metal comb.
"Aunt Viola Loves Jesus," another sculpture, depicts Biko as a shocked boy in a southern church when his aunt "got the spirit," as his uncle explained the woman's unexpected conniption.
Ms. Millner said she likes the range of Biko's work, and considers it different from other artists who have been featured at the guild.
"I just thought it would be something a little different, something a little controversial that will stop and make someone think," Ms. Millner said.
The Biko exhibit opens with a reception from 7 to 9 p.m. Friday at the guild, 10 Vine Ave. The show runs through Feb. 28. Information: (724) 983-1834 and www.artgally.com/vag