SAM WATKINS PARK
The social and political polarization of contemporary American culture serves as a reminder that we are a society that is uncomfortable with ambiguity. Fence sitting, flip-flopping, and moderation are increasingly perceived as admissions of acquiescence and weakness. Ethnic ambiguity can often be a catalyst for this psychological projection. “Light-Skinned” and “dark-skinned” have their respective memes even amongst members of the same race and cultural history, and at times leave bi-racial people feeling as if they should “pick a side”. This definitive symbol-making of people, while at times necessary, is often self-contradictory, as with the first “Black” president who is in fact 50% white. Sam Watkins Park’s work indirectly confronts the avoidance of visual ambiguity through artistic criticism of both races that I belong to. While each painting draws from a lived experience, the images are rendered frenetically and hyperbolically, using familiar colors and symbols from black life while being devoid of any cohesive storytelling, which consequently allows the image to then disintegrate into glib abstraction. This caricature of black circumstance in the gallery context underlines the echo chambers that exist in art institutions, as well as the expectations white institutions, place on black artists to talk about racial issues while systematically accepting funding from wealthy conservatives whose money often supports political and social ideologies that often actively work against marginalized people. It also offers a challenge to black artists who may occasionally mistake progressive self-flagellation for progress, and flee from their own right to be unapologetically glib or superficial within the same context by not embracing the superficiality of image-making.
Sam Watkins Park is a painter and a graphic designer. He was born and raised in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He obtained his BFA at the University of Iowa. He currently lives and works in St. Louis, and is the lead designer at the World Chess Hall of Fame in St. Louis, Missouri.
