Patrice Renee Washington:
Tendersweet

Don't touch my crown
They say the vision I've found
Don't touch what's there
When it's the feelings I wear

- Solange (excerpt Don’t Touch My Hair)

River Valley Arts Collective is pleased to inaugurate our 2023 season with the exhibition Patrice Renee Washington: Tendersweet, organized in partnership with KinoSaito Art Center. Curated by Olga Dekalo, the presentation showcases Washington's ceramic sculptures inspired by handbuilt traditions of modular funerary urns and Central African Nkisi N’Kondi power figures alongside a new series of wall pieces that re-envision monocultural representations of delftware tiles.

Washington’s cylindrical and towering forms continue her examination of Black women’s hair as a symbol of vulnerability, protection, and survival. The sculptures illustrate intricately carved African braiding styles such as cornrows, braids, locks, weaves, bantu knots, and crowns, inlaid in heavily glazed and polished surfaces. The titles reference precious stones that are also evoked by the works’ color palettes and finishes; connecting braiding styles with the sanctity of the natural and the supernatural world.

The artist uses ceramic handbuilding techniques such as coil and slab construction that extend a long lineage of vessel making and in particular, looks to Kongo’s (present-day Angola and Democratic Republic of the Congo) sculptures, nkisi, that was used to contain medicinal herbs and sacred substances. Washington’s freestanding works all share the quality of being closed vessels with protruding elements that pay tribute to the late 19th century power figure of Nkisi N’Kondi. Created by Kongo sculptors and ritual specialists, the figure is portrayed as an authority and avenger of transgressions with characteristic elements of a crown, headdress, and accumulation of pegs, blades, and nails protruding its body.

Washington’s examination of symbols and signifiers of Black power is also evident in her delftware-inspired tile paintings that centralize the experience of Black subjects. Through modernist conventions of the grid and her monochromatic palette, the artist reworks the white European Delft tradition to examine the negation and construction of Black identity. Everyday life is represented through scenes of figures slinging laundry bags over their shoulders, taking a bath, or chopping lumber, alongside depictions of notable personas including Black Panther member Huey P. Newton, James Baldwin, Madam CJ Walker, and Nina Simone.

The series’ recurring image of the boll weevil beetle and the watermelon is central to the artist’s larger project of reclaiming historical narratives. Migrating to the American South in the early 20th century, the boll weevil decimated cotton crops and is believed to have contributed to the Great Migration. The insect’s potential role as an agitator and liberator is explored through the compositional arrangement of its illustrated profiles—they become interchangeable with the figures and visually frame the watermelon paintings. Aesthetically encompassing the duality of dominance and vulnerability, the sliced watermelon becomes the focal point of the series: an emblem of perseverance and achievement as well as racist associations made between the fruit and African-American farmers. By and large, symbolism of power and peril unites Washington's sculptures and paintings that look to historic touchstones of genres and practices in an effort to decipher worlds that we still barely know.

This exhibition is on view at KinoSaito Art Center located at 115 7th Street, Verplanck, New York. The center is open Friday–Sunday, 10am–5pm and Thursday by appointment. For more information please visit kinosaito.org

Patrice Renee Washington (b. 1987, Chicago, IL) has participated in solo exhibitions at Marinaro (2021 and 2019), Underdonk Gallery (2018) and at The Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Denver, CO (2018). Her work was included in "Barring Freedom" (2020) at the San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA among other group exhibitions at Reyes Finn, Detroit, MI; Jenkins Johnson Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; We Buy Gold, Brooklyn, NY; SculptureCenter, Queens, NY; Abrons Art Center, New York, NY; 47 Canal, New York, NY; Museum of Contemporary African Diaspora Arts, Brooklyn, NY; and the LeRoy Neiman Gallery, New York, NY. Washington earned her BFA from Metropolitan State University, Denver, CO and her MFA from Columbia University, NY.

River Valley Arts Collective is a Hudson Valley-based, W.A.G.E. certified organization committed to fostering an inclusive creative community that is responsive and attuned to the ecology of our region. Through partnerships with neighboring arts organizations, foundations, studios, and farms, we curate exhibitions, commission new work, organize outdoor installations, give artists both material and monetary grants, coordinate residencies, host workshops, and spark vital discussions. As a nexus for regional artists and artisans to connect and collaborate with each other as well as with the broader community, we create a generative space for experimentation and shared learning. Our efforts foster the production of work that is as aesthetically and conceptually groundbreaking as it is environmentally aware.

River Valley Arts Collective is grateful for generous support from: Mara Held, Daniel Belasco / The Al Held Foundation, ASD Fund of the Essex County Community Foundation, Athena Foundation, Cabbage Hill Farm Foundation, Nicole Cherubini and Patrick Purcell, The Coby Foundation, Mark Dion, Kristen Dodge, Stef Halmos / Foreland, John B. Koegel, Esq., The New York Foundation for the Arts, The O’Grady Foundation, Robin Panovka, Clay Rockefeller, Rydingsvard Greengard Foundation, Richard Salomon Family Foundation, Hart Perry / Southwood Wood Products, Lenore G. Tawney Foundation, Helen Toomer / Stoneleaf Retreat, Luke Ives Pontifell / The Thornwillow Institute, and SJ Weiler Fund.

KinoSaito is a nonprofit interdisciplinary art center established to extend the collaborative and experimental practices of the Japanese American abstract painter and avant-garde theater designer, Kikuo Saito (1939–2016). Located in the newly renovated former St. Patrick’s Catholic School in Verplanck, NY, the center, which had been Saito’s studio, houses two large art galleries, a multipurpose theater/dance/performance space, two studios for a rotating roster of resident artists, a classroom for arts education and public programs, a café, and a bountiful garden.

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