For this collage style, Romare Bearden was researched. He was an African American 20th century artist who began as a remarkable painter. He later found a passion for collaging in the 1960s, where he would tear out images from famous magazines and piece them together to provide a powerful message pertaining to African American life. He wanted “to create the life of (his) people how (he) knew it” (p. 147, nga). He cut them into shapes and glued them onto a large piece of canvas, layering the pieces to make the picture. He used paper repeated throughout his pieces, for different elements, almost creating patches in his artwork.

When collecting materials for this project, I knew I needed bright, bold paper to represent the colorful paper he used throughout his work. I then grabbed some magazines and chose to focus on African American Pop culture as well as celebrate Black people and highlight how they have been oppressed. The piece is an empowerment of Black culture and a comment on how they are represented in the media or a magazine. 

To assemble the piece, large pieces of colored construction paper were cut out blocking out different elements of my piece, as seen in his piece in the “Mother and Child, 1971.” Another piece that inspired the one I created is “Young Students, 1964” where large African American faces are cut out and piled together with brick pattern layered in the background. I then proceeded to cut out elements of black and white pictures found in the magazine as well as anything pertaining to African American culture. I found an image of Black people protesting, to highlight the recent events of 2020 and the ultimate continued discrimination of them. The other elements I included are famous Black figures such as Michael Jordan and Donald Glover, of whom represent Black people in Pop culture. Little kids appear smiling and happy, which connects to the protesters then as they are fighting for the continuation of those children’s happiness. I laid brick patterns throughout, incorporating the same style Romare used in his “Young Students” collage. I also imitated some of the paper cutting style seen in his art piece titled “Baptism, 1964.” In the bottom right corner, I pasted a black women’s mouth that I found appearing to be speaking and although he doesn’t use many words in his collages or any at all, I decided that it was necessary to paste the words “Don’t Minimize Us” tying the entire finished collage together. 

Making the piece was super intriguing as I didn’t know where to begin, but once I pieced through the magazine, ideas came to life and I was able to see a clear vision for my collage, based on his work. I enjoyed combining the black and white images with the colored shapes, creating a highly contrasted piece of art. While this is no where near his level of detail and expertise, I feel as though it is a proper ode to his artwork and all that he did to empower the African American community.

Work Cited

Romare. “COLLAGES.” Bearden Foundation. Accessed December 8, 2020. https://beardenfoundation.org/collages/.

“Questioning Traditions - Romare Bearden.” Essay. In An Eye for Art , 146–48. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, n.d.