Sojourner Truth Parsons Smells of mother, 2023-2024

Composed of bright blocks of color arranged on horizontal and vertical axes, this painting presents an abstract composition.

Sojourner Truth Parson's works hover at the threshold of abstraction and representation, swinging back and forth as recognizable shapes such as bodies, flowers, city blocks or landscapes never fully settle in one register or the other. Sometimes the association with the outside world is anchored simply by a luminous round disc—sun or moon—that lets the painting shift at the blink of an eye. Or gentle slopes and upturned curves can suddenly manifest their eroticism before retreating again into a compositional whole of abstracted pattern.

Parson's work is informed by the appropriation of collage techniques which have left traces in her paintings process, compositional structure and formal vocabulary. References to the communal activities of African American quilt making in the American South provide an entry to the charged subtext emerging from Parsons' abstracted scenes. Especially Alabama's Gee's Bend quilt making with its uneven shapes and kaleidoscopic central vortices, but also its ethos of resourcefulness and community remains a point of reference.