ARTIST STATEMENT
Since the beginning of Covid, I changed the product of what I do. Out of the necessity of three artists living within two and a half rooms, I carved out a small walled section in which I created work that could fit on a 32” wide table. From that table I began what would eventually be over eighty collages titled BROWN LIMBED GIRLS. These girls graced billboards for the City of Chicago’s Covid Awareness program, were featured on public television, and shown in New Orleans and Oakland.
At first viewing, the “girls” seem all whimsy and at play. But they grew, as did their messages – like the 21st c. Pieta which built upon the solemnity of Michelangelo’s Pieta and the solemnity which affected the country after the death of George Floyd.
Prior to the BROWN LIMBED GIRLS, created fully intentioned shows, serving as artist and curator (and often booking manager). Those shows have spoken to Water issues (Dust in Their Veins) and how they adversely affect peoples of melanin, Original Injustice (Hooded Truths), and an honoring of the words of Octavia Butler with SO BE IT. SEE TO IT.
Now that the country is moving into a whole new epoch, my work will inevitably change again, but always carrying with it vestiges of my upbringing, my love of words, my love of James VanDerZee and Romare Bearden and my love of all of the forms and ways and laughter of little Black girls.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Candace Hunter (chlee) is a Chicago based artist who creates collage, paintings, installations and performance art. She tells stories. Through the use of appropriated materials and re-used materials, she offers new landscapes of back to the viewer with a glimpse of history and admiration of the beautiful. During the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic, she began to do two things – offer free art classes on Instagram and to create what she now calls her “Brown Limbed Girls” – a growing series of whimsical brown girls enjoying their lives no matter what. These girls first caught the attention of the City of Chicago for its Covid Awareness billboards, went on to a gallery debut in New Orleans, then Oakland, have been featured in the Obsidian Literary and Arts Journal and have become covers for two books. chlee is also responsible for producing solo shows including: Dust in Their Veins, Hooded Truths, Loss/Scape: A Landscape of Loss and Prayer Circles: Sacred Text and Abstract Thought. A highly respected artist in the Midwest, chlee has most recently received the 3Arts Next Level Award (2021), the Tim and Helen Meier Family Foundation Award (2020), the 3Arts Award (2016) and honored by the Diasporal Rhythms Collective. In 2020, she served as a juror for the Kentucky Foundation for Women and was a featured speaker at the Midwest Women in Ecology Conference (2019).