Rhonda Wheatley

Untitled 1, 2012
acrylic and paper on canvas
10 x 10 in.

Untitled 2, 2012
acrylic and paper on canvas
10 x 10 in.

The baby blue and soft pink backgrounds in my untitled works speak to the realities we are born into. Skin coloring is part of the package deal of being born, but it’s those amongst whom we’re born—our parents, communities, our country—whose actions and teachings set the foundation (or jumping-off point) for our own sense of race consciousness. We’re also born into a certain socio-economic status and opportunities (or lack thereof) determined by historical factors often involving racial privilege or discrimination—the continued relevance and significance of which some overlook or deny. The loops and curved letterform fragments on the surface of both paintings reflect the stretching of consciousness in many directions; my intent is to depict the complexity of race consciousness in a post-Civil Rights Movement, politically correct United States with the Obamas in the White House.

© Rhonda Wheatley