Afrifaces: People in My Neighborhood Series: "Rasta Couple"

Chandler, a colorist, painted this intensely varicolored figurative series to portray the diversity in character and personality types among the Black people he saw when he walked through his Roxbury, MA neighborhood in the 1960s and 70s.

They were Black people who, just like today, often get represented as a one-dimensional monolith, rather than the brilliant, regal, hardworking, proud people they were and are.

He also wanted to show how many more of his neighbors were protective of the community than the White-controlled media narratives presented them—as violent and dysfunctional.

The names of individual pieces conveyed the personality of the people or the activities they might be engaged in to protect the community.

These smaller works, which the artist painted early in the series that he created from the early 70s to 1989, represent "color sketches". The artist laid out the composition and color of these works first on smaller surfaces that Chandler then used to create larger works in this series in the 1980s.

I painted these spontaneously and very quickly," Chandler says. "I spread blank pieces of plywood and Masonite, primed them, and placed in rows on long tables," he remembers. "I'd pour paint directly onto the surfaces and move the paint around until I got the desired image and effect," he continues. I did no deep intellectual thinking about the pieces; I knew what I wanted to do, so I just went and did that."

He explains further, "It goes back to content and intent. The image was already in my mind, and I just went and painted it."

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Artwork: (c) Dana C. Chandler, Jr. Written content: (c) 2022. Dahna M. Chandler for Celebrated Activist Artist, Inc. All rights reserved. Neither artwork nor content should be used for duplication, derivative works, promotion, or redistribution without permission.