On March 21, The Art Base opened its current exhibition, “God is a Woman,” by multidisciplinary Denver-based artist Paisley Rose. This exhibition, which features paintings, sculptures and even wearable art pieces, explores identity, religious constructs, culture and representation — and is all drawn from Rose’s lived experience as a Black woman in America.
Rose holds a BFA from Metropolitan State University, is a tattoo and piercing artist and makes jewelry in addition to employing her other various art forms. Through art, Rose confronts the absence of Black voices by amplifying the same. She shared that this angle of her work came about during her college years.
“All of my life, I have been an artist. But it wasn’t until college that I realized a lot of the work I was creating did not look like me. Instead, it looked like what was surrounding me, mostly white people,” Rose told The Sopris Sun. “I began to look inward, wondering why I was creating works that didn’t look like me. Then, I started doing more paintings I would have wanted to see as a young artist.”
In this exhibit, Rose touches on religious symbolism, colonialism, motherhood and how the history of slavery in America shaped Black culture today.
“Colonizers, in general, operated under the umbrella of western religion when America was founded,” noted Rose. “They would colonize and would try to completely destroy the place’s religious beliefs, and build theirs on top of it to convert people completely. When it comes to Black bodies, especially in America, things were done to people under ‘God’s name’ and the atrocities were justified by people saying it was ‘God’s will.’”
Rose has paintings in this exhibit that symbolize parenthood and motherhood. “The Creator,” for instance, is a painting not only with a religious connotation, but also explores the differences between the Black and white birthing experiences, including that maternal mortality rates are much higher for Black women.
“I have a newfound set of ideas I’d like to explore about motherhood in the future,” she continued. “In ‘God is A Woman’ I do talk about childbirth in one of my paintings. Even though I knew the statistics of how [Black women] are 2.6 times more likely to die during childbirth than [their] white counterparts, when I was giving my artist talk and we got to that painting it was hard to talk about.”
“I did have a bit of a traumatic childbirth, and I had a moment where I was a little fearful,” she reflected. “Talking through that painting was … a little hard. There are also more paintings in this exhibition discussing things I’ll have to experience.”
“Born to Die” explores the ways in which Black parents must teach their children to navigate an unfair, prejudiced world. Rose recently gave birth to her first child.
“There’s a painting of a father holding his daughter, and it’s about the experience of a Black parent in America and how they tell their children to be more cautious as they navigate the world,” explained Rose. “They can’t go through it without thinking about how their lives can be completely impacted by how others view them.”
In discussing what she hopes viewers of the exhibition gain from attending, Rose said that Black viewers feel seen in her work and that non-Black viewers will walk away with their eyes opened wider to the lived Black experience.
“I think that, unless you go through the experience yourself, you don’t see all of the things that are still happening — and all of the things that came from slavery and the harm that it created not only for Black people, but Americans in general,” she concluded. “I hope that people will want to help with progress and change, and support local Black businesses, Black artists and raise the Black community higher.”
“God is a Woman” is up until April 18. For more information , visit www.theartbase.org or follow Paisley Rose on Instagram, @paisleyrose_art.