Curator’s Corner: Throwback (Thomas Sayre: White Gold)
For today's Curator's Corner, we're throwing back to a powerful and timely exhibition we hosted in 2018 from CAM Raleigh and Clearscapes by artist Thomas Sayre.
Artist Thomas Sayre has always made work that dances between human intention and the resistance of materials. His process of making allows the life of the work to spring from the world's serendipitous offerings when the human hand intersects with nature. The earthcasts in the exhibition are an expression of this intersection. In the two-dimensional work, the same intersection is achieved with dirt, tar, paint, and Sayre's labor, the physical act of smearing, scraping, and rubbing. For Sayre, this process is also a symbolic reckoning with the past.
White Gold refers to cotton and a reverence for the land, the labor, and the people (forced or unforced) who made cotton their livelihood. White Gold is a fierce expression of the Southern landscape: the searing beauty and the haunting pain of history, memory -- and ultimately belonging.
One quote included with the catalogue for the exhibition states, "So, how do I feel about cotton, and what do I say when my four-year-old asks why did our ancestors have to pick it? How do I get past just saying it's complicated? I will tell my son, 'your ancestors, your people, are survivors, and no matter what they have faced in America they have found a way to overcome it. Cotton is another symbol of that, and it reminds us of the dogged determination that our people possessed -- and still possess -- which enables us to strive towards better and brighter days."
- Howard L. Craft, "Cotton Tales: Thanksgiving 2014," Thomas Sayre: White Gold exhibition catalogue
Did you get to experience this powerful installation?
Learn more about this amazing artist and exhibition by visiting www.thomassayre.com/white-gold.
Image Credit: Installation view, "Thomas Sayre: White Gold," at CAM Raleigh, NC. Photograph by Art Howard. Courtesy of Clearscapes, Raleigh, NC.
Image Credit: Detail of "Thicket," 2016, by Thomas Sayre. White laminated masonite panel with roofing tar, Kilz paint, and water based acrylic floor sealer. Photograph by Ashley Warren.
Image Credit: Detail of "Track," 2016, by Thomas Sayre. Reinforced concrete cast in earth, iron oxide, and acrylic sealer on two inch wood plinths. As installed at the Blowing Rock Art & History Museum, Blowing Rock, NC. Photograph by Ashley Warren.
Image Credit: Installation view of "Barn 1-3," 2016, by Thomas Sayre at CAM Raleigh, NC. White laminated masonite panel with roofing tar, enamel paint, and water based acrylic floor sealer. Photograph by Art Howard. Courtesy of Clearscapes, Raleigh, NC.