Addressing Identity: Wifredo Lam

Wifredo Lam (1902-1982) is an artist who purposely addressed identity and culture in his work. Seeing his work makes me think of who I am as an artist, person and what my place might be as a member of society. On the surface, his work appear to be Cubist inspired, however, I've learned that his work is much more than that. His work screams with religion and the prayers of the racially oppressed. I didn't know this at first. I've had to research Wifredo Lam's work and life to gain an understanding of his identity and how he illustrates it in his work. Wifredo Lam was an Afro-Cuban artist of mixed ancestry. He had several influences and lived in Cuba during a time when expressing Black culture was not completed accepted. His middle-class upbringing, the slave trade, European culture, and Santeria, a mixture of Catholicism and African beliefs all informed the compositions that would become his paintings. In Belial, Emperor of the Flies,(1948) Lam combines imagery from Greek mythology and Santeria to create a work that challenges the societal hierarchy. He uses the symbolism of Ares and Venus to communicate the violence and tenderness of creation. Lam fused the ancestry of his Black cultural roots with the unusual to create a voice that shouts back at slavery and racial prejudices. The Jungle (1943) appears to be a painting whose subject is the jungle. Long tree limbs stretch from the bottom of the canvas to the top like thick green wall of foliage. The feet and heads of the figures are disproportionate to each other. The feet are unusually large while the heads are especially small. This was Lam's way of secretly drawing attention to the sugar cane plantations slaves worked tirelessly. As Lam grew in knowledge of his ancestral heritage, more of his cultural story found it's way becoming a visual library in his work. I wish I had known about him much sooner in my art life.

"Wifred Lam. A Video Fragment. A Glimpse of the artist explaining one of his works." Cuban Art News. (August 28, 2014) <http://www.cubanartnews.org/news/wifredo-lam-a-video-fragment/3928>(June 22, 2017)