Celebrating the Black Matriarch: The Work of Alexis Childress
“I am an endangered species, but I sing no victim’s song. I am a woman. I am an artist. And I know where my voice belongs…”
-Diane Reeves
Breaking away from past themes of Black pain and timidities of Black experience in systems of power, Alexis Childress creates a body of work that celebrates the legacy of the Black matriarch in her upcoming solo show No Victim’s Song. Coming from a small, tight-knit family, this current body of work was inspired by the passing of her aunt last year. Childress took a celebratory approach, combining her aunt’s favorite cheetah print and the color coral, used by royalty in some African tribes. In this way, she links her own immediate family to the lineage of her African descendants and contemporary pop culture.
“I want to reclaim this idea of the fierce Black woman, I feel like that’s a phrase that has a lot of connotations to it. I want to reclaim it away from something that is sassy or attitude into where fierceness is independent and enduring strength, which I think is more the truth of it.” - Childress
Some pieces are inspired by contemporary Black icons, like Beyoncé’s 2003 album “Dangerously in Love,” while others blend the images results of internet searches like “sassy black woman” and “sassy white woman” to show the dichotomy between how society personifies these two stereotypes. Childress studied photography at Georgia State Univerity, receiving her BFA in 2020, but she didn’t formulate her unique style of digital collage until later in the program. Her collages almost always use her body as the model, a mode of exploring the pockets, curves, and marks of her own physical form through photography. “My body feels like a culmination of all the women that came before me, I have this idea that I can access their wisdom and their strength through myself,” she says.
“The female matriarch legacy is really beautiful to me, it’s where we pass down our food recipes, how we do our hair, and all these things… I wanted to do a series to celebrate that,” Childress says. She is also interested in the interplay of duality in her work. Innocuous-seeming neon strips and paint drips are often in and around her work. She notes the underlying deviousness of a late-night neon or the oozing titles from old horror movies. These motifs are reinterpreted in and around the collages as a creeping suspicion of the duplicity of power structures and the incomplete American histories we are taught. “That’s my whole goal with my work, I’ve always wanted it to be very delicious when you look at it first, but then you find all the meanings behind it,” she says. Thus, the initial playfulness of color, pattern, and shape can be viewed more menacingly in this light.
The show will be on view Thursday, September 23-Friday, September 24 from 6-10 pm; Saturday, September 25-Sunday, September 26 from 1-6 pm. Please join us for an opening reception on Friday, September 24 from 6 pm to 10 pm. Donation-based tickets are not required; however, your support help keep The Bakery going - reserve tickets here.
Childress in her home studio surrounded by works in progress.
