In ‘With Open Eyes,’ Artists Deploy Dignity and Softness in Depictions of Black Life

In John Berryman’s “Dream Song 29,” the poem opens with a heaviness (“There sat down, once, a thing on Henry’s heart”) that the subject cannot dispel: “Ghastly, / with open eyes, he attends, blind.”

It’s this quality of existential unease, of being unable to either look away or end the source of discomfort, that curator Adrianne Ramsey had in mind while organizing With Open Eyes, a 14-person group show of Black artists at Root Division. She began working on the show, which includes photography, textiles, painting and video, after the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020.

In her curatorial essay, Ramsey recalls how videos of the murder were circulating on social media without any warnings about shocking violence of the content. She points to more recent examples of “Black trauma porn,” like the leaked video of music mogul Sean Combs beating his then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura in a hotel.

With Open Eyes is meant to be an opportunity for Black artists to tell their own stories, not ignoring all harm but allowing them to reframe “the narrative that said bodies only experience harm,” Ramsey writes.

Two oil paintings by local artist Michon Sanders lovingly depict her ancestors in dignified moments of rest. In Arthur Brown (But We Called Him Big Papa), Sanders’ great-great grandfather, a man who lived in rural Florida until the early 1900s, looks tranquil, with close-cropped gray hair, a beard and mustache. The background is a royal purple, enhancing his regal bearing.

Used To Issue Out A Warning shows Sanders’ grandmother, who raised nine children, outside in a lawn chair, her hands folded over her belly. The title comes from the lyrics of Bill Withers’ “Grandma’s Hands,” in which hands caution as well as comfort.

Much of the work in the exhibition presents positive views of Black life, but it’s not a false positivity that ignores struggle. For example, in Bay Area artist Rohan DaCosta’s arresting photo, Sistaz Outside, two women are at the beach, one sipping orange juice out of a goblet and the other with a typewriter and a copy of Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider. Their obvious enjoyment in being together, children playing by the waves behind them, is juxtaposed with a rendering of a slave ship above their heads, a reminder of a brutal past.

Other pieces offer quieter scenes. Los Angeles artist Maya June Mansour’s photograph Dear Body, What’s The Score? shows a woman in a white tub with her back to the viewer. We can see her face reflected in the mirror she holds. In I’m Still Here, Mansour captures what seems to be a still life: a simple room with a wood-burning stove. On the stove sits a small mirror showing the same woman’s face. Both photos, ethereal and spare, evoke a feeling of calm.

With Open Eyes also includes softness and humor. The former comes from Seraphina Perkins’ small, colorful quilt embroidered with poetry, Softest Fruits of My Labor, and the latter comes from Dana Davenport’s Beauty Supply ASMR, a video showing fingers in front of a microphone, massaging various beauty supplies to create a crinkly, soothing sound.

When I walked through the show a few days before it opened, Oakland artist Eniola Fakile was working on the show’s most speculative piece, Ijinle Omi (mysterious water), a physical manifestation of the artist’s invented, fantastical world. In Ijinle Omi, a sea god distributes magical kelp to visitors in the form of blue, green and tan ceramic pieces — available to Root Division visitors for the taking.

“A lot of my practice is really just about finding ways to cope and deal with different feelings through world-building,” Fakile says. “I’m creating a mythology based off different cultures around the world, including my own.”

With works like this, whether the artists create their own worlds, or document the people and things important to them in our shared reality, the exhibition goes beyond depictions of collective pain, allowing viewers to open their eyes to a more expansive view of Black art.

‘With Open Eyes’ is on view at Root Division (1131 Mission St., San Francisco) through Aug. 3, 2024.