This story was originally published by ArtsATL.
In most Black families, there’s a special moment where the young ones would entertain the elders with a choreographed dance to a popular song, often repeated throughout the gathering. As aunties, cousins and elders smiled and clapped with glee, their cheers of encouragement filling the air, you felt a deep sense of belonging and pride. These moments, forming the core familial memories, would later resonate in your spirit as you grew older.
This flourishing warmth is beautifully captured in the exhibition “Reprise: For Da Folks,” which features a tidy collection of painter Timothy Short’s works at Echo Contemporary Art through June 22. The opening night was a heartwarming family reunion, as I witnessed Tim’s family pointing and smiling in the same way as if he were a child performing for them once again as they see themselves as figures in the works.
Art often acts as a bridge, connecting artists’ innermost self and their roots. The work of Georgia native Short is a testament as it embodies an ancient Southern spirituality, infused with a cosmic edge of extraordinary imaginative brilliance. His use of color to adorn and amplify the figures creates a palpable energy filled with love and reverence. Blackness, a feeling deeply rooted in generational experiences and multidimensional in nature, is brought to life in his works.
The artist’s words resonate: “When tapped into, the energy of Blackness opens pathways to alternate universes and planes of existence — power that can be used however we see fit. We are only limited by our imagination.”
Credit: Courtesy of Echo Contemporary Art
Credit: Courtesy of Echo Contemporary Art
In one of the larger works, “As Right As Rain,” Short painted an original photo of his mother seated with two young girls on a quilted lounge chair, resting in front of a floor-to-ceiling brick fireplace with framed family photos crowded on the mantle. The photo is re-imagined with tones of green, the background — originally wood wall paneling — transformed into a bright blue sky and fluffy cumulus clouds.
The artist’s use of a sky as negative space elevates the figures, as they are flanked by deeper monochromatic blues with hints of green laced throughout the painting. This is an example of Short’s testament to making Blackness a celestial affront to this nation’s continued disenfranchisement of diasporic people. As an artist, Short reminds us to center love and imagination, honoring those near and dear to us through dreamlike scenarios and haloed portraits.
Credit: Courtesy of Echo Contemporary Art
Credit: Courtesy of Echo Contemporary Art
“Mama Dale’s Blessing” depicts the matriarch figure of Short’s grandmother, an ancestor, whose essence is beaming from the center of the large painting. She is sitting, postured with her body slightly turned to the front, in a pink dress and long pearl necklace, framed in a wide gold, subtly ornate frame with two Black males on the left and right of her, “dapping” one another as the right figure points to her image.
Mama Dale, as the artist refers to her, smiles brightly at the audience, and I feel as if I can sense what her hug would feel like: comfort. The composition of this unstretched canvas has Mama Dale in the highest center, a pedestal with a glowing ombre of deep blue crowning the frame she is in. The use of blues translates to calm, confidence and peace and the remainder of the work hints of royalty and the notion that grandmothers are often the “queen” of the Black family.
With Short bringing those closest to him onto canvas, we are able to appreciate these figures with a sense of intimate reverence alongside the artist. Other works showcased in the exhibition include portraits of his “Uncle James,” who was at the opening, grinning in satisfaction, and other male figures who are a part of Short’s life, captured in portraits reminiscent of his inspirations, Kerry James Marshall and Barkley Hendricks.
The mm-hmm in Short’s “Reprise: For Da Folks” and recent series lie within the dramatic use of light and the ambitious color play in conjunction with the influence of manga, comics and religion with a bit of metaphysics, a promising trajectory for this Atlanta-based artist. I hope his work continues to evolve to remind us that the Black figure is not a monolith and that we can imagine a future where Black people thrive and revel in the beauty of the past and present.
ART REVIEW
“Reprise: For Da Folks”
At Echo Contemporary Art through June 22. Noon-5 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, 785 Echo St. NW, Atlanta. 404-680-8728, Echo-Contemporary-Art
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Lauren Jackson Harris is an Atlanta-based curator, consultant and writer. Harris is also the Founder of Black Women in Visual Art, serves on the board of directors for Dashboard and is a guest curator of the Inaugural Atlanta Art Fair in October 2024.
Credit: ArtsATL
Credit: ArtsATL
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