A Profound Celebration of Self
by Uruba Slaughter, curated by Precious C. Musa
Exhibition Dates: Through December 2023
Location: Post-Security, near gates E34 and 36
A Profound Celebration of Self recognizes the joy of understanding and acting out who you are. Each piece–the colors, the jaggedness of the textures–celebrates different facets of the self inprocess. “TRINITY” acts as the foundational color and concept palette for the collection. Blue and green are earthy colors that carry grounding feelings like peace and calm. Orange and yellow represent light, emergence, and suspension. Red, crimson, and pink represent passion, courage, and love while purple and lavender exemplify the royalty, wisdom, and power associated with the authentic self. “TRINITY,” “OPACARE,” and “EMMANUEL” all feature circles, which are associated with the infinite and ongoing cycle of becoming, understanding, and commemorating your self. “TRINITY”’s size counterpart, the first Untitled piece, acts as a sort of redaction of “TRINITY” where that protruding texture down the middle flattens out and sinks to the background, obscured by the erasing power of white. There are moments in our personal journeys where we need to take a step back and reset ourselves and our intentions. We need to slip to the background and understand what we’ve learned before we emerge brighter, better, and bolder. “INDOMITABLE COURAGE” rises with a fiery palette reminiscent of this emergent energy. In the second Untitled piece, we settle into a wisdom-infused landscape: sprawling purples couch a triumphant matte-orange in a new chapter in the self’s process. Slaughter’s signature texture work represents the visceral, bumpy process of change that each iteration of the self undergoes. Within this collection, Slaughter challenged–and is still challenging–herself to use bright, bold, saturated colors that bring a lighter mood to her work anddepart from her darker, more reserved palette. In the Artist’s words: “[These creations say] you are awake, you are alive, you are celebrating who you are. I’m here. I see me. I feel me. I understand me. And now I have to celebrate it. I’m unapologetically myself.”
About the Exhibitor:
Uruba Slaughter
Uruba Slaughter is a professional artist whose focus is abstractions. In 2017, she began to pursue her passion and found that her use of receptive meditation and reflection—tools she developed after being diagnosed with a brain aneurysm—allowed her to portray visions with commanding depth as she expressed her emotions, experiences, and power through acrylic colors and custom textures. Slaughter has amassed a catalog of original masterpieces and exhibited those works in a number of galleries and events, most notably in her 2021 solo show, In ability to Fathom, at Empire Arts Gallery in Atlanta. Since then, she’s exhibited work at Angad Arts Hotel in St. Louis and been featured in Essence Magazine as one of the “7 Contemporary Black Women Painters to Watch.” She’s appeared on the Black News Channel, and Black Art in America named her as one of the top ten breakthrough women artists. Uruba currently resides between St. Louis and Atlanta. She believes when figures and words aren’t enough to heal suffering, abstraction is used instead.
Precious Musa
Weeks after Musa’s first meeting with Uruba Slaughter, she became her curator. She has had the privilege of sitting in her studio for hours, staring at her creations, asking questions, and touching—a physical engagement often denied the viewer. She thanks STL Lambert International Airport and the Art and Culture Program for the opportunity to showcase Slaughter’s work as indicative of the unbound talent that exists in St. Louis.
To learn more, visit: AbstractsLover.com
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