Hair is an opportunity to express something further within each of these works.
Skye Volmar
In their two-person Platform presentation, Gabrielle Banks and Skye Volmar present a series of works known collectively as Split Ends.
This phrase becomes shorthand for conversations surrounding isolation, performativity, and the relationship between girlhood and womanhood. The show, named for the artists’ portrayal of hair, depicts different hair types and hair practices as they relate to various perceptions of Black women.
Such perceptions include neat vs. raggedy, girly vs. grown, tame vs. unruly, curly vs. kinky, and good vs. bad. These styles, their complexity, versatility (and/or lack thereof), speak to racist, colourist and gendered expectations regarding the role of Black women as caretakers, educators and fetish objects.
Overview
Often, work created by Black artists is categorised as inaccessible. At best, this “inaccessibility” looks and feels like seclusion and, at worst, it is exclusion.
By sharing this platform, Volmar and Banks provide the audience – and each other – with greater insight and understanding of lived Black experience. The two have a common goal: to see each other and to feel seen. In this case, self-portraits are a way for the artists to see themselves, especially when no one else is looking. Ultimately, this show is an exchange that lends itself towards continued self-preservation, growth and healing.
Watch
Skye Volmar
Orange Moon (The Mother in Me)
2020
Skye Volmar
motion picture
2021
Gabrielle Banks
Water Signs
2021
Skye Volmar
humidity humility
2021
Skye Volmar
Facade
2021
Gabrielle Banks
Portrait of My Mother
2021
Gabrielle Banks
Office Chair
2021
Gabrielle Banks
Facial
2021
The artists studied painting together as undergraduates at the Rhode Island School of Design, where they were two of four Black women to graduate from the department in 2019.
They currently live and work in their respective hometowns: Providence, Rhode Island for Banks, Los Angeles for Volmar. This bi-coastal body of work was created over the past year, rekindling the connection the artists had created in order to survive a predominantly White institution of higher education. Given Banks and Volmar’s shared interests, their work inevitably overlaps, particularly around ideas of socialisation and study.
Skye Volmar (b. 1997, New Jersey) holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design.
She is a recipient of the Florence Leif Award, grants from the Kyoto Fund and the Center for Reconciliation. She was a 2019 OxBow School of Art and Artist Residency fellow and would have been a 2020 resident of Vermont Studio Center, if not for COVID-19 cancellations. Recent Exhibitions include Deli Gallery’s flower, child, Kohn Gallery’s Myselves, and Zurcher Gallery’s benefit exhibition We Must Begin Wherever We Are. Recent press includes Art in America, Artsy, Harper’s Bazaar, Whitewall, ARTnews and Paper Magazine.
About the Artists
Gabrielle Banks (b. 1997, Nassau, The Bahamas) attended the Slade School of Fine Art Studio Program and holds a BFA in painting from Rhode Island School of Design.
She is a 2020 finalist for the MacColl Johnson Fellowship, recipient of the Becky Westcott Memorial Painting Award, and 2019/2020 Vermont Studio Center resident. Her work has been presented at Donaldson Gallery, RISD Museum’s Gelman Gallery, Sotheby’s New York, the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas, United States Embassy Ambassador Residence of the Bahamas, and more. Recent press includes Hyperallergic, The Nassau Guardian and The Tribune.
Chosen Charity
