![]() ![]() The Maine-born artist soon realized she would get greater perspective by heading down south to find an actual Freedom Rider. “The reaction was very powerful, stronger than anything else I’ve done before.” So Jennsen set out to pay tribute, creating a small set of paintings honoring the Montgomery Bus Boycotters of 1955-56 and the Freedom Riders of 1961 and placing them in her Brooklyn restaurant. ![]() And it felt like a real study of a moment and not just a portrait of a person, but a portrait of a moment that I could make artwork around.” ‘One Day In Montgomery’ in 1956 and ‘One Day’ in 1961. The first thing I found was a set of mugshots. To find that “something,” she turned to a popular problem-solving place these days: the Internet. “Around the time of Obama’s election, there was so much joy in my neighborhood, a very multicultural neighborhood in Brooklyn,” Jennsen said about her inspiration to undergo the project. Currently on display at Philadelphia’s African-American Museum through September 30th, the collection of oil canvas mugshots of those who participated in the 20th century Freedom Bus Rides for integrated public transit is juxtaposed with ID cards, secretly handwritten notes, and any other written documents Janssen could find. These three paintings make up part of Jennsen’s “Freedom Riders” exhibit. and Rosa Parks sit nearby with stern looks at the camera. ![]() Civil rights staples Martin Luther King, Jr. A side painting of Trinidadian activist Stokely Carmichael lies mere feet away. The main part of the room, however, is where your eyes stay focused: A picture of young Black children at a 1920s Harlem pool lines the upper right (in tribute to Harlem Renaissance man James Van Der Zee). To your immediate left hangs pictures of a naked couple presumably after sexual intercourse, to the right, a man with a half-smile, half-scowl on his face. ![]()
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