Artscape

Inner light

by Tracy Zollinger Turner

James Dupree's canvases are so rich in color and inner light, the relaxed geometric shapes and quiet fruits that fill them look as though they could just as easily be stained glass windows.

He uses acrylic underpainting, layers of glazes, paint mixed with mica chips, holographic mylar—any tool or technique he can find that will help the reds, blues, purples and greens on the surface to transmit an otherworldly, magnetic warmth. The paintings' circles and squares have plenty in common with jazz music—a mathematical structure that seizes every opportunity to improvise.

More than 50 pieces from the Philadelphia-based artists' series of work, Stolen Dreams, Forbidden Fruit, are currently on exhibit at Kiaca Gallery.

During his Gallery Hop reception, Dupree said that in the six years that he worked on the series, he moved through phases where the work was socio-political, abstract, decorative, spiritual and representational. There are pieces from each of those phases in the show, but finding them requires a close examination, because the transitions and the images in the pieces are very discreet.

The series' title is inspired partly by Langston Hughes' "A Dream Deferred," which uses images of decomposing food to illustrate the decay wrought by unfulfilled aspirations. The fruit that appears in Dupree's work is often ripe and supple. And some of the paintings do pose questions about racism and injustice, but they are subliminal, much as Dupree sees racism itself.

"When you see these paintings, I feel the most important thing for you to see is the quality, substance and integrity of the work," he said.

Dupree often finds that he doesn't recognize the symbols in his own work until painting is complete. The triptych S.D.F.F.—Life, Death and Eternity shows off every facet of his skill as a painter—his use of color, his ability to create a sense of depth on the canvas, and the subtle symbolism of an egg shape that's cracking around the belfry.

"The idea that birth is about an egg wasn't something I was thinking about as I painted," he said with enthusiasm, his hand swirling in the air above the shape. "It just appeared."

While Kiaca Gallery is ordinarily exclusively committed to showing the work of contemporary African artists, the chance to be the first to show such a broad number of paintings by an African-American artist that is as established as Dupree was not one they wanted to pass up.

When he was a young graduate of the Columbus College of Art and Design in 1972, Dupree won first place in a juried exhibition and the Columbus Museum of Art acquired a piece of his work. He has worked nonstop ever since, continuing on to get his MFA from the University of Pennsylvania and residencies at the Studio Museum of Harlem in New York, the National Museum in Cardiff, Wales and the Contemporary Art Center in North Adams, Massachusetts.

He now teaches as an adjunct professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, the town where he also has his own studio gallery and is regularly commissioned to do public works, including a mural of writer Sonia Sanchez, a 10-panel painting of various musicians at Tower Records and a set design of giant cobras, genies and elephant heads for Shooting Stars Mummers Club's production of An Arabian Nights Tale. He will also soon have an installation up at Philly's Please Touch Museum.

March 8th, 2007

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