Donna Personna
New World In A Promised Land, 2020

mixed media, photo collage, painting, written word
25”H x 37”W

ARTWORK STATEMENT:

The Artwork is in the tradition of a combination Religious Tableau/ Mexican Retablo.the central depiction is of a House bound for the ‘Promised Land’ .the theme is Black Lives Matter. within this house is a triptych wherein 3 houses are found.the first house is a slave house in Louisiana. The second house is present day San Francisco, the final house is in Gambia Africa. The roof of the larger , main house is tiled with images of African Americans killed by police.the houses within the triptych exemplifies the history of blacks in America with the third house being in the ‘promised land’ Promised land hete is a reference to Martin Luther King Jr.’s mention of it in his speech ‘I have a dream’ where he uses that term to mean equal rights for Blacks in America. My intention is that the Artwork be both visually beautiful and more importantly a tale of the 400 year struggles of Blacks in America.

Artist Bio:

Donna Personna is a San Francisco activist who focusses on marginalized, underserved communities.She has done much work around Transgenders in general and transgenders of color in particular.She co- wrote a play of a San Francisco history, The Compton’s Cafeteria Riots’ which tells of the fight for LGBTQ liberation in 1966 (3 years before Stonewall). She is also a fine arts photographer with more than 20 professional exhibitions. She is the subject of documentary films about her life.