Sight Lines: The Face on the Canvas

SIGHT LINES: THE FACE ON THE CANVAS

"If I had to label myself, I would be the Displaced Black Female Artist....I find myself without roots or grounding. To express that, I paint myself in other time periods with clothing that would not seem suitable or common for a black woman. I dream and paint of other lives and escape my displacement. You may call it my way of having time travel.

"This is why my main subject matter is self-portraits. When one is forced to reckon with oneself, the only thing to do is look in the mirror and evaluate the situation. I prefer oil paint to other mediums. It gives the subject permanence and history, in my view. It solidifies my existence. If I can immortalize myself on canvas, I have defeated the limitations of life itself.

"I am not bound by color or race. The color is only the surface of it all. Scrape away layers of paint, and you can find the initial ideas and the soul of the art."

—DeSande R

An MFA student in art, DeSande R has done several self-portraits modeled after works by Rembrandt, da Vinci, and Caravaggio. Combining African-American subject matter with the style of these European masters, she says, "helped me with my own self-identity." DeSande’s work has been exhibited in Chicago, Memphis, Philadelphia, Kansas City, and Topeka, as well as Carbondale. This past summer she received an Illinois Humanities Council scholarship to conduct a three-day workshop for children about Rembrandt and self-portraiture.

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