A Conversation
Art Professor Ann Johnson is currently exhibiting in the public art exhibition titled: Color Up/Color
Down. The exhibition is located at Russ Pittman Park and Nature Reserve, in Bellaire (Southwest
Houston), TX. For Color up Color down, Johnson created a body of work that examines a past,
present, and future. “My intention is to create a conversation”. In Johnson’s installation, nestled
among the trees are images of young slave girls printed on Oak and Sycamore leaves. The leaves
have been re-integrated from trees within the park. The bewildered young slave girls gaze at a
collection of colorful stars that Johnson has created from bedazzled boxes and mirrors. Settled, and
encased in resin, in the center of the “stars” are images printed on leaves, of a generation of young
African Americans living a free life, a future that is difficult for the young slaves to envision. But are
those kids in the stars really free? Are they really living in a “post racial” America? Are the kids in
the stars being taught about the past of the enslaved girls on the leaves? Is our future trapped in a
digital world? The environment and placement of this specific installation presents an opportunity for
the viewer to engage in a conversation about a past, present, and future. The exhibition will run
through May 1, 2014.
Russ Pittman Park is free and open to the public. For more information on the exhibit and park visit:
http://municipaldirt.weebly.com/ .
THE CONVERSATION: FROM THE COLOR UP/COLOR DOWN EXHBITION.INSTALLATION VIEW