“I am out with lanterns, looking for myself,” wrote the poet Emily Dickinson in a letter to a friend. “You are, to be sure, mistaken in thinking that you have an ego; but if, in the meantime, you identify it with your body, your name, and your property, you thereby at least make ready a place for it, in case by any chance an ego should come,” said Friedrich Schlegel in his novel “Lucinde” The search for identity, and how elusive it can be (as we see from quotes by these nineteenth-century writers) is not new but timeless and universal. Such is the theme of “Intersection: Identity and Culture,” the current intriguing exhibition of artworks in various media at Falls Church Arts.
Taking the theme quite literally, plein air artist Steve Mabley has painted an intersection of streets in “Bestworld,” an oil painting on a linen panel named after the neighborhood international supermarket on Mount Pleasant Street, NW, Washington, D.C., where Mr. Mabley lives. The painting depicts a blue sky of soft clouds which hang gaily above a storefront with a red-orange roof, faded green awning, and, most notably, the name “Bestworld” standing out in red upon a yellow backdrop. Nameless strangers walk cheerfully through the crosswalks and on the sidewalk to the right. In “identity and culture” style, the artist informs us: “Mount Pleasant is a tight-knit and diverse neighborhood, and I embrace this place as ‘home,’ including this funky market where I pick up produce every few days. Mt. Pleasant Street and Bestworld are my identity.”
Artist Maria Kinnane takes us much farther away to “My World, My Culture” of Hungary. She displays her Hungarian heritage in an oil painting of great warmth. Inviting landscape paintings of a home and an outdoor mountain vista adorn the wall on the top right of the painting, and just below we view an armchair whose back is decorated with a woven disc, a tribute to a Hungarian affinity for woven textile arts. Below is a beautiful, almost life-like doll in Hungarian national costume; in a touch of humor, a large, fluffy cat rests in front of all! An element of surprise is present, a blue bag of goodies—presumably Hungarian treats—with a puffy yellow bow rests on the seat of the armchair.
Rebecca Perez’s black-and-white woodblock print “Doña” spotlights an item of clothing surrounded by nature, paying tribute to Latin American heritage. The artist states in her artwork description card that this work also expresses her personal identity, “a response to a longing for home and how I fit in my family’s maternal line. The woodblock print features a bata (Spanish, [“housedress” in English]), which is traditionally worn by Latinas while doing housework.”
Moving to the complex identities of an adoptee, “I Can’t Look at the Sky Without Thinking of You” is a fascinating work in mixed media by Pamela Huffman. The artist tells us that, as an adopted child, she always wondered about her birth mother. She was able to piece together the story of her heritage when the adoption agency revealed to her that she was raised by an Italian family in India even though she is ethnically mostly Scottish. Her artwork, true to the theme of her piecing her life story together, is a patchwork of her history in photos and text.
The collage method of this last artwork reminds us there are so many ways to piece together identity and culture, and the reader is invited to experience these artworks and many more (some quite abstract, others classical like Xixi Luo’s elegant “Dream Lotus” in water and ink on paper) at Falls Church Arts through January 7.