Monday, September 20, 2021

Summer 2021 Highlights, Part Five

A lot of the acttual good  highlights came from Florida  What's up with that?

I'm glad I got introduced to the works of Reginald O'Neal at the NSU Art Museum.

It got a poem out of me. One that I like. That's more than I can say for most experiences.


Artist Statment: "Reginald O'Neal (b. Miami, FL; lives and works in Miami, FL). Visitation, 2019, Oil on Canvias ' Miami born artist Reginald O'Neal is influenced by personal experiences, aswell as the lives of peole around him. With a journalistic lens and classical approach, Reginald paints intimate fragments of his life. Paintings range from landscape paintings of the public housing project in Miami's Overgown neighborhood--where he as lived his entire life--to a quiet still-life of his beloved grandmother's glasses who recently passed during the height of the coronavirus pandemic; to a series of works based on a life changing incident that touches on the generational repetition of domestic violence in his family. Reginal explains, 'My desire is to embrace the unappreciated, defaced and missrepresented, as well as illustrate the true beauty within my community. It is for people looking from the outside, but mainly a mirror for residnets of the community to see ourselves for who we are. June 16 was the last time I visited my father this year. That specific day was special because we took my younger sister to see him for the first time in 17 years. She was 7 years old when he was arrested and sentenced to 25 years in prison. The day after visiting him, he was transferred to South Florida Correction to be processed, for another transfer he requested from Moore Haven Correctional Facility, where he spent the last 4 years. It tales up to a week to get processed and transferred to the next facility. Being accustomed to my dad calling my family every day, we were unaware that all of this was in the process. Then, a friend of my father reached out and informed us that he was being transferred. After not hearing from my father in two weeks, we got worried and looked up where he was being transferred to, and found out he was cent to Reception Medical Corretions. We were informed that he was going to spend two months in solitary confinement for a fight that he had in South Florida Correction. After being released from solitary confinement, he was sent to Okeechobee Correctional Facility, where he would stay. ONce he got settled he gave my aunt a call and told her the news - his visiation has been suspended for a year, because of the fight. In the prison system when an inmate gets in trouble, in some cases they'll punish them with an ultimatum of additional time to thei sentence, or suspending your visitation.' Reginald O'Neal, 2019"


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