After the Civil War, it was common for formerly enslaved people to grow watermelons on their own land and sell them as a cash crop.
For many African Americans, the watermelon became a symbol of self-reliance and liberation. In reaction, white Southerners who were threatened by their loss of dominance turned the watermelon into a cultural caricature to depict Black people as lazy, childlike and unclean. This racist trope gained such popularity that the original meaning of the watermelon as a political symbol in America was obscured.
Exploring the meaning behind symbols and talismans of the Black diasporic experience is central to ceramicist Patrice Renee Washington’s work. Blending traditional and contemporary artistic practices, her artwork incorporates imagery of watermelons, fried chicken eateries, African braiding hairstyles, Central African nkisi sculptures and Delftware.
“She’s thinking about how symbols can be both a trapping for empowerment, but then subjugation,” says Amber Esseiva, curator of Washington’s exhibition “Tendril” that’s currently on display at the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University. “The history of watermelon farming is one where self-determination was very much imbued in the practice of selling watermelons, but then it became a caricature for racism. That tension between freedom and subjugation are symbols that she plays a lot with in her show.”
Based in New York, Washington uses ceramics to explore structures of race, class and gender as they relate to identity and experience. This Friday, Washington will lecture at the ICA about her work, coinciding with the massive National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts’ convention “Coalescence” that’s currently in town.
“She’s a really new, exciting artist,” Esseiva says. “Patrice’s work very much continues [the ICA’s] interest in the Black American experience, the young artist experience, but does so through ceramics.”
In a series of painted tiles inspired by Dutch Delftware are depictions of watermelons, watermelon seeds, boll weevil beetles and various locations of Chicago-based fried chicken restaurant Harold’s Chicken Shack.
Esseiva explains that Delftware is “something that was taken from the Near East and reappropriated by the Dutch to symbolize bourgeois tastes. She’s thinking about the appropriation of symbols as it relates to the Black American experience and specifically the Black American agricultural worker.”
Other pieces are inspired by nkisi sculptures from Central Africa. These sculptures are containers that hold sacred substances believed to heal illnesses, keep the peace, punish wrongdoers and settle disputes.
Washington’s cylindrical sculptures depict African hairstyles, including cornrows, braids, locks, weaves, crowns and Bantu knots. These pieces are meant to explore the idea of Black women’s hair as a symbol of protection, vulnerability and survival.
“These are very intricate, hand-fired things that she made at home,” Esseiva says. “It’s a play on old and new.”
At a time when many artists are expanding into multiple mediums — painters making videos, and the like — Esseiva says Washington is figuring out new ways to work within the form of ceramics.
“She’s made a way to stay within the bounds of ceramics, but speak to contemporary traditions without moving around,” Esseiva says. “It shows a different way of an artist appealing to contemporary desires and trends without abandoning a medium.”
“Tendril” is on display at the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, 601 W. Broad St. On Friday, March 22, artist Patrice Renee Washington will give a talk at 6:30 p.m. followed by a reception. The event’s happy hour starts at 5 p.m.
For more information, visit icavcu.org or call 804-828-2823.
