Where "the past meets the present”: An Interview With Laurel Richardson

By Maslen Ward 

Laurel Richardson is an interdisciplinary artist. She received her MFA degree in Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design. Her art and research practice integrates painting and installation and focuses on family lineage, collective histories, and cultural memory centering on the history of the African diaspora.

Her current work stems from her graduate research in Ghana during the 400 year anniversary of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. She currently teaches at Brooklyn College and Bard High School Early College, Manhattan. Her recent exhibitions include: The Logics of Non Exchange (2021) at Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery in NYC and This is Not Enough (2020) at Slag Gallery in NYC. 

She has danced professionally for modern dance companies, including Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble in Denver, Colorado, and Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre, in Chicago, Illinois. She performed in The Color Purple and Dreamgirls at the Regional Broadway Theatre.

MASLEN WARD: What are some of the driving forces behind your work?

 LAUREL RICHARDSON: In my work, the past meets the present. Through my work, I chart my personal history and the history of the African Diaspora while also questioning the current and historical representation of bodies of color. I do this by reconnecting lost and unknown connections while reflecting on ideas of emergence, power, and resilience. 

Through painting, installation, and elements of performance, I produce an interwoven surface of ideas and histories. My work uses dye, acrylic washes, and oil paint, and it loosely references African American quilting, Asante Kente weaving patterns, and Ghanaian batik.

MW: How did you arrive at visual art as a medium? 

LR: It was always a part of me, even when I was a child. I was always making creative work with family and friends, from different forms of dance as a kid (ballet, modern jazz) to painting and drawing things, as well as laying things around my grandmother’s sewing room.  

MW: Do you have early memories of artists or dancers that influenced you? 

LR: Yes, I have always been influenced by those who have paved the way before me. I loved the work of dancers Katherine Dunham, Carmen de Lavallade, and Judith Jamison. I was also influenced by visual artists like Kerry James Marshall, Elizabeth Catlett, and Lorna Simpson

MW: Do you have a studio? What's your artistic process?

LR: I live in Harlem. My studio is not currently in Harlem, but I would say that Harlem is one of my starting points for inspiration. 

MW: Your work Follow Mother is on the cover of Washington Square Review. I love this piece so much. It’s gorgeous. 

LR: Thank you. Follow Mother comes from a series of works that was first inspired by my grandmother’s sewing room in Chicago. I have always had a yearning to learn more about my history. Follow Mother comes out of this process of tracing my migration and family lineage through my grandmother, mother, and ancestors.

It explores the following of passageways as I trace my ancestry through Africa as motherland. I am concerned with the visibility, value, and representation of Black women throughout history. 

Through a series of painting installations, I build upon a matriarchal monument of the mothers and ancestors who have influenced and guided me. My work, in thinking about the strength and impact of these women, references the motherland as a mother. I also explore the gaze in portraiture and the refusal of one’s reciprocal gaze.

I would say my process is interdisciplinary. There are parts of my work that are connected to performance, which stems from my roots as a dancer. I incorporate interviews and research documentation. In the studio, I put different materials and ideas together: it ebbs and flows. I use a layering of materials as a way of visual storytelling.  

I work with textiles and dyeing canvas. For instance, in this piece, I was influenced by Kente cloth weaving patterns,  and I was also thinking of tree branches that were hanging in front of the Queen Mother's home. I was thinking of looking through a passageway into a clearing.  

I worked through a process of conducting research, interviewing people, observing, and having conversations. The work becomes an ongoing process of storytelling and uncovering. 

MW: How did you decide to start tracing your family’s history? 

LR: My grandmother created a chart to trace our family’s history. She traced our family’s connections and migration through the 1800s. One day we sat looking at this chart which traces the family back to Chicago, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Lexington, Missouri, and back through the Great Migration. 

Sometimes I think about the history that belongs to us, what belongs to others, and what belongs to the world. There are a lot of dividing lines, whether it be through immigration border lines, ethnicity, or belief systems. I am interested to discover intersecting points of connection. 

To create this artwork, I took scraps of fabric from my grandmother’s sewing room and patched them together. It was symbolic of the way in which the search for my family history has been a patchwork of putting histories together. In an attempt to trace my lineage and family's migration, I began tracing this history from Chicago to Harlem, through to the Great Migration and my ancestry in West Africa. 

I began this exploration and my research in Ghana during the Year of Return which marked the 400-year anniversary of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in 1619.

I ended up going back through archives, and I found an interview of my paternal great great grandmother, through the National Archives Dawes Rolls (an archive of applications for tribal enrollment between 1899 and 1907 into the Five Tribes of Native Americans). I took my maternal grandmother's fabric from her sewing room and my great-grandmother’s jewelry. As I began going back through the things that belonged to family members,  it became important to me to find and uncover these archives.

MW: Have there been any particular interviews that have struck you or influenced your work?

LR:  My great great grandmother’s interview from the Dawes Rolls felt almost as if I was listening to her speak in the 1800s. Also, listening to my grandmother tell stories in real time was important.  When I was in Ghana, I  interviewed three Asante Queen Mothers. 

I spent most of my time with  Nana Ampratwum Ababio II. She was the female ruler of the town of Ejisu- Besease just outside of Kumasi, which is the birthplace of the historical Queen Mother Nana Yaa Asantewaa.  I called Nana Amprwatwum Ababio II,  Nanahemma. Ahemaa is another word for Queen in the Akan language, Twi. 

She recently passed away this past year. She was the sub-Queen Mother under the Asantehemma (Female ruler of the Asantes) in Ejisu Besease for 42 years. Nanahemma spoke to me the way a grandmother would. I had the chance to sit and speak with her on her door stoop, and she told me about the historical Queen Mother Nana Yaa Asantewaa.  

Nana Yaa Asantewaa was a historic and heroic figure who was a Queen Mother but was also the leader of the war against the British in the fight against British colonization of Ghana in 1900. Her story is chronicled in The War of the Golden Stool.

It was great to connect to these stories (although unconnected)  as a threading of roots and passing down of histories. Learning the stories of these Queen Mothers and their monumental impact influenced my work greatly.

MW: You mentioned that your grandmother’s sewing room was significant to you. What did the sewing room represent in your home?

LR: The sewing room was this place of belonging, a place of creativity and exploration. Putting together different pieces of fabric—such as a piece of curtain or a dress—connects me to when my grandmother worked as a seamstress, and also to the stories she told about beginning her career as a teacher in Chicago.

MW: You’ve mentioned that writing is part of your process. Can you talk a little bit more about what writing means to you?

LR: Thank you. Through writing, I am able to speak back to myself in a way that informs my work, in a nurturing way. I’ve been focussing on working through my thoughts and reflecting on them. 

MW: What has been one of the more rewarding experiences of your art or something you were really proud of in the last year or two?

LR: My thesis work was really rewarding because it was the culmination of the three years of research that entailed finding my process, putting it together, and building up an installation that had layers to it.​​ Interviewing the Queen Mother Nana Amprwatwum Ababio II was important. I did not know at the time that she would pass away.

MW: Is there a question you ask yourself when you're working?

LR: What am I doing, and why am I doing it? Who am I affecting? What importance does it have, and what value am I creating?

MW: Is there any advice you would give to young artists?

LR: [Laughter] Well, I'm just starting out. I consider myself an emerging artist.

MW: Is there any advice you give yourself?

LR: You have to keep going and keep trying over and over again. That's something I have to keep telling myself—to just keep going and give yourself grace. Give yourself permission to start over again at any point in your career.

MW: Give yourself grace. That's great. Do you listen to music as you're working? What are you listening to?

LR: Esperanza Spalding, and  Burna Boy.  Mostly afro beats and a lot of jazz.

MW: Do you always have it on in the studio while you're working?

LR: Sometimes, I put on NPR. Sometimes I listen to the news. It depends.

MW: Are there any current artists or exhibits that are really exciting to you right now?

LR: I just saw Ibrahim Mahama’s work in Tamale, Ghana. It reminds me of Doris Salcedo's work, as well as Nari Ward’s work. It's monumental. It's huge. It is immersive, and you encounter the art. I think that's really important.

MW: What is it made out of?

LR: Materials from urban environments like jute sacks. 

MW: A lot of your work deals with history and memory. Are there any artists that have influenced you in terms of these themes as you’re thinking about intersections between personal and larger histories?

LR: Collective is the word I like to use. I love that word. I love Sam Gilliam’s process.

MW: What about his process? 

LW: It stems from Abstract Expressionism in an entirely new way through Lyrical Abstraction. I love the process of Color Field painting, putting the canvas on the ground, and staining the canvas. 

Those are definitely some of my influences process-wise.  In terms of collective histories, Simone Leigh is a sculptor with some amazing works. I really look up to her.

MW: When did you first encounter her work?

LW: At the Guggenheim. Whenever I see her work, I have an experience. I also love Kerry James Marshall—there are so many artists I admire. 

MW: Are you still working on this series?

LR: I'm still writing about it. 

I'm still concerned with how people of color are portrayed and have been represented throughout history. I'm still looking at some of those same subjects. Right now, I'm working on a cyanotype with grass that I have from Tamale. It's still in process.