The Albany Area Arts Council (AAAC) will be opening their newest exhibit this Thursday, February 9, 2023, featuring the work of local artist, Ke’Chanbria Ball, entitled “Hue- manize,” depicting humanizing mechanisms of the African American.” The exhibit dates will be February 9-March 23, 2023, at the Albany Area Arts Council Carnegie Building located at 215 N. Jackson Street in downtown Albany. An Opening Reception for this exhibit will be held on Thursday, February 9, 2023, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Carnegie.

Currently the visual arts teacher at Lamar Reese Magnet School of the Arts, Ball’s work has been exhibited virtually, locally, and internationally in Georgia and China. Throughout her work, she explores themes of race, culture, and the denotations of color. Working primarily on large-

scale portraiture with mediums of oil and acrylic paints, Ball, in a Realist style, depicts humaniz- ing mechanisms of the African American.

Ball’s perspective stems from historical accounts that racial supremacy has been buried in American history and is still prevalent to this day. 1619 Jamestown Colony is the origin of Amer- ica’s patriarchy of white supremacy, discrimination, and racism. Fear and generational trauma have been pervasive in Black culture since 1619. For centuries, Black people have been de- graded from slavery, racist imagery, and stereotypes to continued police brutality.

Believing that representation does matter, Ball contends that the representation of Black peo- ple has been unsettling, humiliating, and completely inaccurate. She contends that imagery is something that the human experience relies on and that it helps a person associate the imagery with themselves and their experiences. Ball believes that humiliating imagery is used to further dehumanize races that are socially oppressed and in particular, Blacks are seen as aggressors, products of poverty, and are deemed lesser and are not seen as historical and modern authorial and powerful figures. She believes that caricatures, like black face, golliwangs, and other offen- sive stereotypical imagery have influenced society’s dehumanizing view of the Black people.

“I want to break these stereotypical boundaries that restrict the growth and self-love of Black people,” said Ball. “My objective is to rewrite the stories of Black people through my work, which explores the complexity and duality of being a person of color, while reflecting on hu- manity within Blackness.”

Ball’s philosophy is that through visual vocabulary, a smile is incorporated in the majority of her paintings, which is used to manifest a person in their truest and purest form. The juxtaposition of figure and background speaks to the fluidity of being Black through medium of poured paint, which depicts the different cultures that are often overlooked, by simply labeling all Black peo- ple as African Americans.

“Many of my portraits are based on photographs taken of my friends, people I admire, and of other artists,” said Ball. “This connection that I have with my models is important to capturing the essence of a person. This is how I view the world and Black people and I take a softer ap- proach to how I see Black people, while still reflecting on my own experiences. I do not see us as aggressive, lazy, thugs, ugly, that society has labeled us to be, but as hue-man beings with feelings, ideas, goals, and families.”

Quoting Kehinde Wiley, Ball’s artist statement is: “I understand blackness from the inside out. What my goal is, is to allow the world to see the humanity that I know personally to be the truth.”

After opening night this Thursday, visitors can visit the Art Gallery at Carnegie to view the ex- hibit Monday through Thursday each week from 12Noon to 4 p.m., with additional hours be- ing available by appointment only.