Review of the Center for Contemporary African Art & Culture ‘My Identity’ by Liberian Artist Martin Zeinway

By: Charles S. Mombo
@burnedbrass, @charlessmombo

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Each piece of Zeinway’s work eloquently captures his experience during Liberia’s barbaric civil war in which 250,000 people lost their lives. His pieces are heavily laden with images of the Adinkra symbols. He uses the Adinkra symbols to convey traditional wisdom, aspects of life and the environment into his work.

Located on 6200 S. Drexel Avenue (Harris Park) in Chicago, the Center for Contemporary African Art & Culture has an ongoing exhibition through November 13^th. This ‘must see’ exhibition is part of the Chicago Artists Month presenting Liberian artist Martin Zeinway with his “My Identity” theme. Each piece of Zeinway’s work

eloquently captures his experience during Liberia’s barbaric civil war in which 250,000 people lost their lives. His pieces are heavily laden with images of the Adinkra symbols. He uses the Adinkra symbols to convey traditional wisdom, aspects of life and the environment into his work.

“My artwork is a commentary on my war-torn origins and on the search for my identity”, says Zeinway. “As a child I had to leave Liberia, my country of origin, devastated by an ongoing civil war, and resettle as a refugee in the USA.”

According to Zeinway, “Before moving here [USA] I never considered myself to be ‘Black’. I was Liberian, then African. To Americans, however, I am first Black, then African, then Liberian; and to Black Americans, an African, who is Black, from Liberia. Who am I in reality?”

“Liberia created me and showed me how to love and care for humanity; America taught me how to live and work,” he says. “I am a man of the world, rich of many experiences; I do not want to choose. The more categories we draw, the more divisiveness we generate.” “Being at University of Cincinnati was challenging and frustrating at the same time,” he says. “I wanted to do something different but did not know what. I felt unable to define myself, asking constantly: Who am I? Am I an artist, an educator, a student, a Liberian, a Black, an African, an American…? I felt lost with so many layers of identity.”

Zeinway is not just an artist; he has paid his due by racking up some serious credit hours since coming to America as a 14-year-old refugee with his uncle. He received a Bachelor’s degree in Studio Art from Central State University, Wilberforce, OH, a Master’s degree in Art Education form Miami University, Oxford, OH, and a Master in Fine Art degree from the University of Cincinnati (UC). He currently teaches art at Central State University and at Alliance Academy, a Cincinnati charter school.

While in college, Zeinway started questioning himself and reflecting on his past war experiences that were never addressed. He stopped suppressing those thoughts and allowed them to emerge. Painful memories, silenced until then, resurfaced. The war he lived as a child and the damages it caused and that he experienced when visited Liberia had never left him. Images of violence, desolation, destruction, human loss and suffering, dormant for many years, started to manifest itself in his work. It became a healing process.

“I found myself sketching bodies without limbs, exploded bleeding heads, crying individuals, displaced families…” he says. “I knew where they were coming from.”

Encouraged by his professors to explore his feelings and concerns, he decided to create works about himself and his past and inform the viewer. War, violence and their negative effects, the destruction of his country and of its culture, the loss of life, disintegration of communities, became all part of his painted works. They spoke of the ugliness of armed conflicts and of the need to abolish them.

In my opinion, one of Zeinway’s master pieces is A Mother’s Cry which is also on display at the Center for Contemporary African Art & Culture. A Mother’s Cry shows an African woman crying, her sons are gone; recruited to be child soldiers. Her daughter was forced to become a sex slave. Nothing is left to her, not even food depicted as fruit in the painting, alluding to both starvation and loss of her children, essential ingredients of her life. Zeinway was also indirectly referring to his own mother, sad, separated from her son she had sent away not to be killed.

The Peace Keeper, points to the irony of war; it shows a soccer ball next to 2 groups of fighters laying down their arms. During the war, the Liberian factional fighters would often reunite and stop fighting just in time for a football game. After the game, they would go to their separate sides and start shooting at one another. The soccer ball was an elusive symbol of peace.

The Role Reversal addresses the changes arm power inflicts on the traditional functioning of a community. It shows elders and elderly, in time of peace wise decision-makers of the tribe, silenced and replaced by powerful young gun-carrying fighters.

In Decisions, a young pregnant lady stands next to writing that says: “All I wanted is some food, and now I carry the baby of the rebels,” illustrating the unjust and inhuman pressures war places on individuals, especially women, for survival.

Zeinway will continue to use his art to oppose war and fight racial and social classifications. He wants his work to educate on the issues of identity, race, discrimination, and motivate for equality, peace and justice. He hopes one day to build an art school in Liberia to give children the opportunity to develop their creative talents at the service of a better world.

Run Dates:

October 6, 2011 – November 13, 2011
Curator: Fanta Celah

The Center for Contemporary African Art & Culture
6200 S. Drexel Avenue (Harris Park), Chicago, Illinois

Aihusa.org 773.955.ARTS (2787)