Popular Culture Ripped at the Seams: Race and Gender in the Work of Six African American Women Fiber Artists

Cara S. Bramson
Cooperstown Graduate Program
2010

ABSTRACT

This thesis analyses the art of six contemporary African American women fiber artists, Kyra Hicks, Noelle Lorraine Williams, Senga Nengudi, Precious Lovell, Ora Knowell and Zene Peer, whose work addresses African American women’s identities.  Their work subverts and appropriates white popular culture to challenge historic and contemporary stereotypes ascribed to African American women.  These stereotypes are the Mammy and the negligent mother, both of which are linked to concepts of labor, sexuality, motherhood, and power.  Through their art, these women challenge dominant representations of the black body, deconstruct gender norms associated with African American women, and raise awareness of social issues plaguing African American communities.

Fiber art and the work of African American women artists have been historically marginalized within art history and the mainstream art industry.  The feminist art movement of the 1960s and the black arts movement of the 1970s both had a great influence on African American fiber artists receiving recognition within art galleries and museums.  The artists analyzed in this thesis exemplify the outcome of these movements, as all of them have shown their work in art galleries and museums in the 1990s and early 2000s.  While their work is on display, it continues to transform the collective image of African American women in the United States by addressing social and political issues related to race and gender.

The primary sources for this thesis were interviews with each of the six artists and an analysis of the art they created.  Topics in each interview included choices about the use of popular culture, materials, and the written word, biographical information about training and community, and feelings about the concepts of race, gender, and place.  Secondary research was conducted using a variety of texts on the subjects of African American women’s history, black feminist theory, African American art history, and popular culture theory.