Created at his 791 Tremont St., Roxbury, MA studio by the then-26-year-old artist, Chandler made these 'color notes' because the calligraphic form of Chinese alphabet characters fascinated him.

"The characters in the Chinese alphabet are a piece of artwork themselves," he says. He added an explosion of color and life around the abstracted character because, he says, "I was doing what I saw in my head." He adds, "This piece also is based on forms in nature."

The color explosion surrounding the abstracted characters not only reflects that he is a colorist, it affirms the artist didn't mean to represent these works as authentic Chinese or any other East Asia language character. He believes the alphabet in those languages is striking, so the small-scale masterpieces in this series are his way of honoring their beauty.

Chandler also says he painted these to show people his range of artist talent. "I was concerned that people thought I could not do abstract art, but these pieces could be placed against any abstract artist's and show just as well."

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Artwork: (c) Dana C. Chandler, Jr. Written content: (c) 2022-2023. Dahna M. Chandler for The Celebrated Activist Artist, Inc. All rights reserved. Neither artwork nor content should be used for duplication, derivative works, promotion, or redistribution without permission.

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 or engage in spaces outside their community not dominated by them, like most American corporate settings.

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 cardboard, 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, and I did that."

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

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Artwork: (c) Dana C. Chandler, Jr. Written content: (c) 2022-2023. Dahna M. Chandler for The Celebrated Activist Artist, Inc. All rights reserved. Neither artwork nor content should be used for duplication, derivative works, promotion, or redistribution without permission.

Chandler created this series because, he says, "I got sick of Black artists using White models in their work." The work, he says, "also testifies to the beauty of Black women." Chandler wanted Black artists to recognize they didn't have to go outside their community to find beautiful artist models.

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Artwork: (c) Dana C. Chandler, Jr. Written content: (c) 2022-2023. Dahna M. Chandler for The Celebrated Activist Artist, Inc. All rights reserved. Neither artwork nor content should be used for duplication, derivative works, promotion, or redistribution without permission.

Chandler created these series of images as a statement of his activism in the Black community and to show he actually could draw. He also created them because, he says, "My images express my political and cultural intent to uplift Black folks and let us know we are as good as anyone else despite being enslaved labor used to build America's wealth early in its history." He's always believed and taught as an educator that Black people's history didn't begin in America or anyplace else with transatlantic enslaved, "and much my work reflects that."

"However, we are still forced into the enslavers' imposed mindset because we still have to measure what we do by standards that are not our own, but are European standards. These images show the beauty and power of Black people, particularly Black women. They show we create strong family ties and units just like European-Americans do," he states.

Like his other works, Chandler says, "My art was never about making the work commercially viable or about making it Euro-museum quality, but creating it from an African-American aesthetic."

"If it became acceptable to the broader culture, fine," he adds.

"But Euro -validation was never my intent, because I never cared what Europeans thought about my work. I only cared what my people—Black people—thought about my work, and I only had us in mind when I created this or any of my art," he declares. "

"I always felt best when my work was shown with the works of other highly regarded African American artists," he says. "I expected my work to be good enough to be exhibited around euro- artist's work, too, and it was and still is."

[Acquisition Note: Because these are available in limited supply, we do not sell these as individual pieces. We sell a full set of 13 pieces, with original signatures by the artist.]

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Artwork: (c) Dana C. Chandler, Jr. Written content: (c) 2022-2023. Dahna M. Chandler for The Celebrated Activist Artist, Inc. All rights reserved. Neither artwork nor content should be used for duplication, derivative works, promotion, or redistribution without permission.

These pieces are standalone pieces that are not part of one of the artist's series.

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Artwork: (c) Dana C. Chandler, Jr. Written content: (c) 2022-2023. Dahna M. Chandler for The Celebrated Activist Artist, Inc. All rights reserved. Neither artwork nor content should be used for duplication, derivative works, promotion, or redistribution without permission.

Chandler, the brother to five sisters and father to five daughters during this time period, created this series of works to show Black women they could use whatever they had in their homes to protect themselves from abuse and violence there. As the women in America who get the least protection, Chandler saw this is a necessary series to create to send a message to both Black women and those that might hurt them or their children. Black women have a human right to self-defense and to defend their children, even in a culture that long punished them, often with death, for exercising that human right.

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Artwork: (c) Dana C. Chandler, Jr. Written content: (c) 2022-2023. Dahna M. Chandler for The Celebrated Activist Artist, Inc. All rights reserved. Neither artwork nor content should be used for duplication, derivative works, promotion, or redistribution without permission.