Tashema Davis has seen a version of black men in the media that didn't include, and often contradicted, the gentleness, sensitivity, and warmth found in the black man that she knows. In this exhibit, entitled The Hood, she includes the fathers, brothers, and uncles we love in the narrative by creating the art she yearns to see.

Tashema Davis
*Young Thunder Cat*
oil, acrylic
30” x 40”

This maximalist exhibit is full of color. It features acrylic, collage-style portraiture painted on canvas. Most pieces include a figure and a plume of natural ornamentation. Davis’ favorite painting of the show, Messiah’s Compassion, features a freckled young man with light brown skin and hair. He’s framed in a teal background with maroon and pink blossoms arching over his head. He leans his head back over his shoulder at a pair of finches, a type of bird rumored to have been present at the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, nestled in a blossoming branch. Their crimson feathers are freckled with seeds of white in the same fashion as the figure of the man.

Tashema Davis
*Messiah's Compassion*
oil, acrylic
30” x 40”

Bear is framed on a tapestry, fringed with tassels. A fatherlike figure with cyan cornrows holds his young child amidst a stamped background. Two sun figures encapsulate their heads with colorful stripes. At the bottom of the image, a warbler emerges from a plume of lime-green foliage. The striking plume contrasts the subject’s brown skin and smooth, rippled musculature.

Tashema Davis
*Bear*
oil, acrylic
22” x 72”

In Endangered Joy, cool shades of lilac dominate the background while the smiles of three children light the foreground. Gold leaf embellishments hover throughout the image as if they were holes in the joy of the trio.

Tashema Davis
*Endangered Joy*
Oil, acrylic
30" x 40"

The Hood references childhood, manhood, and fatherhood. Tashema Davis features black faces and bodies in her work, and in doing so, tells a story. She aims to broaden the narrative on African Americans, particularly African American men, by doing what she loves most – creating art.

See The Hood in the Speck Gallery through the month of December.