Afi Lane explores concepts of memory, migration in stirring 934 Gallery exhibition

With the approach of America250, marking the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, artist Afi Lane began to consider how the contributions of Black Americans had historically been downplayed, overlooked, and erased. Witness the actions undertaken by this current administration, which has advanced segregationist policies under the guise of rolling back corporatized DEI, taking advantage of the opportunity to rewrite history and deemphasize the struggle and accomplishments of Black Americans. Not that any of this is particularly new to Lane, of course.

“I remember even in college and graduate school, there was not a lot of illustration to accompany the Black people that were mentioned [in textbooks],” said Lane, whose work is currently on display in a 934 Gallery exhibition slated to run through Saturday, June 27, joined in the Milo-Grogan space by artists Davon Brantley and Teresa Greve Wolf. (The gallery has open hours from noon-3 p.m. on Saturday, June 20.) “And even when there were illustrations, a lot of them were of Black people in servitude or obscured by a curtain, or their features made larger than they should be, or skin made darker than it should be, where the illustrator would make them darker than what was being described. And that comes up in a lot of my artwork, and I find myself fighting with being labeled a contemporary artist, because I’m really trying to help correct a lot of that misinformation in our history.”

Lane described herself as an adherent of the historian and professor John Henrick Clarke, citing as one favorite quote his advice to “take what you do best, and do it for your people.” For Lane, these words have pushed her to search for something beyond beauty in her art, creating works that speak to history and our perceived collective experiences, as she explained it.

For “Northbound,” on display at 934, this involved creating a series of stirring charcoal portraits built around a question the Houston-based artist posed to a number of friends and family members: If you were forced to flee with only the clothes on your back, what is one thing you would take with you? Lane then selected eight of the responses to build portraits around, each person holding a single object, including a bible, a birth certificate, and a child still in utero. 

Collectively, Lane said the works serve to as a reflection on memory, migration, and the emotional weight of survival within the Black American experience. This last point resonates in the artist’s decision to build each portrait atop a photograph of sediment from the Ohio River, which existed as a line of demarcation between the slave states of the South and the so-called free North.

Growing up, Lane said the racism to which she was exposed tended to be less overt, such as the time in fourth or fifth grade, when during a conference her mother had to correct her teacher, who was operating under the false assumption the youngster didn’t have a father at home. “And I definitely remember in middle childhood being aware of these little things that constantly reminded me I was Black,” she said. “I was in accelerated classes where often I was the only Black child, and when it was Black History Month, the teacher would make me a focal point, and when she asked a question, everyone would turn around and look at me.”

Even in these earlier years, art existed as a constant presence for Lane, whose mother would routinely confiscate her daughter’s crayons and markers, owing to her habit of drawing on the walls. Eventually, her dad solved the problem by purchasing her a stack of blank white drawing paper, which presented its own challenge for the budding artist. “That was my first introduction to, ‘Oh, I get to draw what I want,’ and that was that first spark in asking what I could do with my creativity.”

It would be a number of decades before this answer began to present itself, though, with art largely serving as a hobby for Lane while she pursued more academic interests, completing college and graduate school where she studied clinical and forensic psychology. Following graduation, she took a job as a forensic psychotherapist in a clinic where she worked with children going through the criminal justice system in Harris County, Texas. 

A little more than a decade ago, however, Lane stumbled back into art when she began sketching portraits of different people with whom she was connected on Facebook, adopting the practice as a way to keep nimble her fingers as she struggled with rheumatoid arthritis. “So, it was more for physical therapy than anything, and it turned into a thing where every day my friends were fighting to get picked for the daily sketch,” Lane said, and laughed.

After a few years of this, Lane began to tire of drawing people, recalling one woman who upon seeing the finished sketch asked it to be altered to give her breasts “more volume.” 

“And my daddy, again to the rescue, was like, ‘You should just paint what you want to paint,’” said Lane, who acknowledged that she sometimes struggles with perception when it comes to the recognition she has received as an artist in the years since pivoting from commissions. 

“And a lot of that is me battling with the fact that I have rheumatoid arthritis, and I use a wheelchair, and my fingers are all dislocated, and so I was very self-conscious about that,” she continued. “Because if you see me first and then the art, I’m always wondering, ‘Well, do they only like the art because they think I shouldn’t be capable of producing it at this level?’ I’ve always had a lot of people encouraging me about using my story and not shying away from it, but I do try to keep it very separate from the art, you know, because I first want people to appreciate the art, the technique in the art, and the history behind it.”