Radcliffe Bailey’s works are a wonder to view in person.  A storyteller, Bailey layers and assembles symbols, photographs, motifs, and text to build a narrative network between his personal history, memory, and identity to that of the African Diaspora. His 2003 work Far Beyond the Valley is currently on view alongside other recent acquisitions by Black artists including Gordon Parks, John T. Biggers, Whitfield Lovell, and more. Bailey’s work and many others were acquired by LSUMOA through the Winifred and Kevin P. Reilly Initiative for Underrepresented Artists. 

Far Beyond the Valley is a symbolic ode and journey through African American history, culture, memory and ancestry–an important theme and tenet of Bailey’s work. Bailey is not only influenced by his experience and history as an African American, but also by his family and traditional African and African American art forms and traditions, including jazz, quilting, and traditional African art and sculpture. 

In his work, it is common to see photographs inset and sitting behind shadow boxes or glass. Many of these photographs are reprints from an archive of over 400 photographs gifted to him by his grandmother. Other times, the photographs are of people that are unidentified. To Bailey, these photographs represent family, identity and connection. His intention, by placing them in the center, is to draw you in–to connect you to work. And although the viewer’s eyes go directly to the photograph in the center of the work, Bailey adds these photographs in last to prevent the image from disrupting the conversation he is having with it. 

The glass is often tinted as well, highlighting the disconnection among many groups throughout the African Diaspora to their ancestral homeland, Africa. In doing this, Bailey also highlights a tradition that is common among the African Diaspora, that of altars and ancestral veneration.  By placing photographs at the center of works, Bailey elevates and restores honor to the figure’s story. The shadow box is almost reminiscent of a medicine cabinet, where one would go to seek healing. In this case, healing is found in the photographed figure, prompting the idea that connection, or reconnection, is a source of healing amongst the African Diaspora. 

Bailey also utilizes several symbols throughout his works to create narratives, employing a symbolic visual language. Color is of extreme importance in Bailey’s practice. His selections are intentional and invoke a connection to his heritage and the larger African American and African Diasporic experience. Bailey most commonly uses gold, which represents “strange fruit,” the horrific history of lynchings of African Americans throughout history, as well as green, which represents the color of his grandfather’s childhood bedroom.

Bailey’s works act as cultural portals bringing the viewer through time and space–and through history. Hence, many of his works allude to travel.  A moon rests above the central photograph; to its right are train tracks. The moon invokes the history of the Underground Railroad whereas the track alludes to history of the Great Migration. Both the Underground Railroad and Great Migration were two important cultural moments where African Americans sought out a better life. 

The tracks are also especially symbolic in Bailey’s work as they are an ode to Bailey’s father, who was a railroad engineer. 

To the left of the photograph, directly beneath the periwinkle tree, is what appears to be a river. Painted green, this river evokes not just travel, but illustrates the significance of water in African American history and culture. From the Nile to the Atlantic and from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, water has always been a powerful yet complex  geographical feature in African American culture and folklore, often invoking freedom and hope and captivity and violence simultaneously. In African American cultural and historical memory, rivers often act as symbols of connection to the past and to ancestors. 

Cradling the photograph is a periwinkle tree, whose roots extend to the moss near the bottom of the painting. The tree stands in as a representation of ancestry, of heritage, and of lineage. Utilizing this tree, Bailey explores his own ancestry, but also highlights the power of memory and ancestry. Even the title Bailey chose suggests that this work is about histories and memories that connect all African Americans. 

Far Beyond the Valley and the exhibition Collection Spotlight: Recent Acquisitions by Black Artists are on view until September 26, 2021. The Winifred and Kevin P. Reilly Initiative for Underrepresented Artists will continue to support the growth of the LSU MOA’s permanent collection through 2021. 

Written by Kirsten Campbell, LSU MOA Graduate Assistant

LSU MOA thanks Louisiana CAT for supporting graduate assistantships. Their support allows the museum to provide arts education and career experience to students.