Djerassi Resident Artists Program | Lava Thomas - Djerassi Resident Artists Program

Lava Thomas

A Change is Gonna Come #10/30, 2020

Tambourine, grosgrain ribbon, and pyrographic calligraphy on leather.
10 inches x 10 inches x 2 inches
A Change is Gonna Come draws from the sense of resilience and determination evoked by the music of the Civil Rights Movement—music that resonates with the ongoing struggle against white supremacy in our current political climate. With reference to the song often cited as the anthem for the Civil Rights Movement, the words “A Change is Gonna Come” are inscribed onto the tambourine drum using pyrographic calligraphy. As an egalitarian instrument deployed during protest marches and used to amplify voices for justice and equality, the tambourine symbolically alludes to notions of empowerment and individual agency: power placed directly in the hands of the people.
$3,000 – Sold

Contact us for purchase using the Buy Now button above. All art is offered at Fair Market Value. 50% of the proceeds will benefit the Djerassi Resident Artists Program and 50% will be granted back to the artist. In some cases the artist has made a full donation to the Program.

Biography

Lava Thomas is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work is grounded in acts of reverence, memorialization, and commemoration. Her portraits, sculptures, paintings, and site-specific installations draw from her family’s southern roots, African-American devotional and protest traditions, intersectional feminism, and socio-political events.

Her work is held in museum collections nationwide, including the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, The Studio Museum in Harlem, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, the Cantor Art Center at Stanford University, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, and the United States Consulate General in Johannesburg, South Africa. Among her awards are a Joan Mitchell Foundation Award for Painters and Sculptors, an American Arts and Letters Purchase Prize, a San Francisco Artadia Award, and a Lucas Artists Fellowship. Thomas studied at UCLA’s School of Art Practice and received a BFA from California College of the Arts (CCA). She serves on CCA’s Presidential Advisory Committee and is a former trustee of the Djerassi Resident’s Artists Program and the Alliance of Artists Communities. She is represented by Rena Bransten Gallery in San Francisco, CA.