Constance White: “Her ephemeral self” May 22-July16 2021
Constance White Bio
Through her artistic practice, Constance Y. White endeavors a sensitive exploration as a path to discovering ideas about beauty and femininity. Her compositions originate from a never ending process of evaluating her personhood, embodiment of self, and all that defines her as female. Driven by curiosity, her work investigates themes of sensuality and vulnerability through a personal perspective of her lived experience as a black woman.
Often questioning mythology and traditional artistic interpretations that commonly objectify femininity as something that desires to be gazed upon, worshiped, adored and even collected, she layers real and ancient narratives as abstract drawings, mixed-media and analog collage on paper.
Constance is a native Texan and studied art history and studio art at Southern Methodist University Meadows School of Art, Dallas Texas. She worked in arts administration for nearly two decades before committing to her artistic practice full-time.
Since relocating back to Dallas, Constance has had several residencies, exhibitions in Dallas and California, and has private patrons across the United States. Constance has worked as a teaching artist, group facilitator and is a sought after speaker, panelist and juror.
About “Her Ephemeral Self”
This body of work (produced during the height of shelter-in-place mandate of the Covid-19 pandemic) features hand-cut and glued (analog) collage derived from personal interviews with eight unique black women. The artist included herself in this process. The work honors the diverse, complex, vibrant and nuanced beauty of each woman interviewed. Responding to working in isolation, Constance made a shift from creating representational to non-representational work; which manifested as abstract portraits presented as a montage of images for each woman. "The often unspoken aspects of ourselves; our self discovery; our origin stories as women; as human beings, are assembled among the shapes and tones and read as dreamscapes or metaphors."
*photos of opening reception captured by Bettzy Rodriguez at Myx Photography
