Black History Month: Black Power and an artist’s response to Covid-19

October is Black History Month (BHM) in the UK. An annual celebration of the history, culture, achievements and contributions of black people across the country, it has been celebrated here for more than 30 years and originally began as a way of remembering important people and events in the history of the African diaspora.

To mark BHM this year we have been raising the profile of work by our black students, staff and alumni on social media.

BA Fine Art Drawing graduate Deborah Hobson’s striking series of portraits stood out to us on the UAL Graduate Showcase this summer.

We asked Deborah to share more about her practice, the messaging behind her Showcase submission as well as to talk about Black History Month, and what being a Black artist means to her.

How would you describe your practice?

As a Black artist I aim to create work which is socially engaged and stimulates or provokes a political dialogue or disturbs the status quo.

The focus of my practice is mainly portraiture where I use graphite pencil, charcoal, pastel, watercolour, acrylic and oil paints on paper and canvas. I also produce nudes using the same mediums and similarly produce still life drawings.

Currently, my portraits are based on original photographic images I take and some sourced stills. My subjects are prominent Black political campaigners whom I have worked with, friends and family and some well-known Black figures in popular culture. There are instances where my drawings and paintings of people have been pegged to news stories that have captured my interest as a Black journalist.

Blending, blurring and overlapping photographic images to symbolise Black familial relationships, similarities, resemblance, ageing and the passing of time has become a distinct part of my work. I have used vintage film cameras like the Ensign Selfix and the Fujica ST605 to take portraits in black and white that have produced a cinematic quality to the final images.

My UAL Graduate Showcase submission features portraits which are figurative depictions of Black British and American anti-racism and Black power activists as commemorative pieces.

Their activism in the context of state and police brutality is an important part of my history as a Black person and political activist. The artworks are in graphite pencil, charcoal and oil paint on paper, canvas boards and sheets.

I have also included work I produced which are paintings as an artist’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic and the disproportionate numbers of African Caribbean, Bangladeshi and Pakistani people who are dying from the illness. They are among the National Health Service workers and other frontline service providers who have been affected.

What key message do you hope audiences will take away from seeing your work?

I believe that for Black artists, politics is inextricably linked to our art and identities because of our very being and the history we carry with us. I hope that, by seeing my work, audiences will gain an understanding of my perspective as a Black artist and campaigner as well as an awareness of the historical and present condition of Black communities and our ongoing struggles particularly, against anti-Black racism.

Recent global protests led by the Black Lives Matter Movement (BLM) acted as a dramatic, long-overdue wake-up call for every part of society to change and reminded us that Britain’s Black History Month in October shouldn’t be held just once a year but be a constant theme in schools, colleges, universities and everywhere else.

Black History Month gives us all time to reflect that, if we don’t know where we’re coming from – and fail to be honest and inclusive about it – we don’t know where we’re going.

What is your cultural background and has this had an influence in your art practice?

Although I was born in the UK, my immediate ancestral home is Grenada in the Caribbean, known affectionately as the 'Isle of spice' because it is a major producer of nutmeg and mace.

Grenada has a rich political history that includes the momentous revolution of 1979 led by Maurice Bishop and his Marxist New Jewel Movement Party to the subsequent Ronald Reagan US imperialist invasion of the island in 1983.

Political discussions and awareness largely from a conscious Black working class viewpoint was an important feature of my upbringing, influencing my activism and practice as an artist.

We asked Deborah to name a black artist that inspires her. Deborah came back to us with several Black artists who have had an impact on her work, and they include Claudette Johnson, Barbara Walker, Lorna Simpson, Titus Kaphar, Barclay L Hendricks, Emory Douglas and Roy De Carava.

Deborah continues: “It would be great to have had the opportunity to collaborate with any one of these hugely talented practitioners, who have presented a counter narrative in their work to the biased and negative misrepresentations of the Black figure and Black culture.”

Deborah also cites Dr Kimathi Donkor, the BA Fine Art Painting Course Leader at Camberwell, as an inspiration for her practice. Here at Camberwell, Kimathi has worked closely with Shades of Noir. We spoke to him in 2019, just as he was appointed as Course Leader, about his ambitions for the course, the intersection of his practice as an educator and an artist, and his long-running work to diversify the fine art curriculum.

How important is diversity, inclusion and representation in the art sector/education?

The Black Lives Matter activists have raised important questions about “decolonising” the curriculum and classrooms to make sure there are more Black lessons, students and teachers.

There is a continuing imperative for Black people to decolonise the curriculum in schools and in further and higher education, robustly championed by the students’ “why is my curriculum white” campaign. We must write our own history and create our own art.

Deborah’s UAL Graduate Showcase submission

Camberwell’s UAL Graduate Showcase

Find out more about our BA Fine Art: Drawing course