Angie Redmond, a second year MFA student in painting and museum studies at the NIU School of Art and Design from Maywood, Ill. won first place at the prestigious national juried art exhibition “Black Creativity” at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
Angie Redmond’s winning entry, “Is It Anger, or Jealousy?”
Redmond’s piece, Is It Anger, or Jealousy? was selected from hundreds of submissions from all over the country.
Angie said the piece is part of a series she painted in response to a trend she saw of fashion companies like Gucci and Prada incorporating blackface into their advertising.
“Those companies would say that ‘it was an accident’,” Redmond said, “But it keeps happening.”
Her winning entry was one of four of her pieces that made it into the show. “I’m big into color psychology,” she said. “This piece uses red for anger and green to represent jealousy, and I wanted it to look like a watermelon, to use an old stereotype to create a bold image.”
Angie holds a bachelor’s in studio art from Albion College, and a master of science in digital art from Knowledge Systems Institute in Skokie.
She says she is pursuing her MFA at NIU to “strengthen” her art even more, and was interested in museum studies to build a the knowledge and skills to open and maintain her own gallery.
Angie had submitted entries to the Black Creativity show in previous years with one being selected in 2015 and two last year.
“It’s really special for me,” she said, “The show is geared towards representing black artists, and it’s very hard to get in with artists entering from all over the country.”
Since 1970, the Museum of Science and Industry (MSI) has hosted the Juried Art Exhibition, the nation’s longest-running exhibition of African-American art. The exhibition is part of the Museum’s Black Creativity program, which showcases African-American achievement in a variety of scientific, artistic and technological fields.
Each year, the Black Creativity Juried Art Exhibition presents more than 100 works of art from emerging and professional African-American artists. Angie will receive a $3,000 first place award at a ceremony Thursday, February 20 at the Museum of Science and Industry.
The Black Creativity Art Exhibition through March 1 at the MSI, 5700 South Lake Shore Drive in Chicago.
