Oasa DuVerney: BLACK POWER WAVE

This installation is an iteration of the larger series of BLACK POWER WAVE drawings that I began in 2016. Originally I set out to use the relationship we all share with water as a way to describe the need for a universal understanding of BLACK POWER and LIBERATION without the exploitation of the Black body.

With this new series I am looking to iconography from a multitude of cultural histories that directly or indirectly deal with ideas of protection, care, and transition such as Chinese Fu dogs, the cross, and the Yoruba deity Èsù. In these drawings, the BLACK POWER WAVE plays the role of Èsù the trickster and teacher at the crossroads of our understanding. I make use of the symbolic forms of protection often found at thresholds and transitions as a way to call in—to require a different knowledge of self and Black liberation.

— Oasa DuVerney