Even artists have asked Tawny Chatmon what kind of paint she uses on her subjects’ faces after standing in front of her work. The question doesn’t surprise her anymore.
“It’s a photograph,” she said. “But I also want you to have the feeling that you’re looking at a painting that existed long before now.”
That tension between photography and painting is central to the Maryland artist’s work, now on view through July 3 at the Academy Art Museum as part of its Juneteenth exhibition.
Every piece begins with a photograph. After enhancing the image digitally, Chatmon builds the finished work with acrylic paint, embroidery, collage and other hand-applied materials. Many of the faces belong to her own children.—rendered with the dignity and grandeur once reserved almost exclusively for royalty, saints, and nobility.
Born in Tokyo while her father served in the military, Chatmon spent part of her childhood in Germany before her family settled in Maryland. “Our field trips were to castles and things like that while we were in Germany,” she said. “In kind of thinking about why I always had this love for these big, grand, gold Baroque frames and decorative objects, I somewhat kind of linked them back to those times. But I can’t say that as a child I said, ‘Oh wow, I love these things so much they’re going to follow me into adulthood.’ I think if anything, it is all subconscious.”
However, those influences found their way into her work, every portrait begins with a photograph.
Sometimes an idea grows from emotions she’s trying to understand. “I’ll ask one of my children, ‘Hey, will you sit for me for this new work that I want to create?’” she said. “After refining the photographs…that’s when all of the emotions and anything else that I want to embed in the work, like my prayers or affirmations for the world, all just get put into the work.”
For years, Chatmon incorporated 24-karat gold into her pieces to symbolize value, importance, and preciousness. More recently, she stopped using it after learning about unethical mining practices, particularly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
“It just didn’t make sense to me to continue to use this material,” she said. “I knew people would ask why I no longer use it, and I knew that it would allow me to speak about what’s happening there.”
Before creating the portraits for which she has become known, Chatmon worked primarily as a commercial photographer. Everything changed after her father was diagnosed with prostate cancer. The family documented his illness, believing they would one day have a story of survival.
Instead, he died.
“I know that was a very pivotal moment in my life,” she said. “I realized that my children, one day, would experience the same thing, where they would have to navigate this world without me. It’s the only thing that is guaranteed in life, and it’s also the hardest thing.”
His death changed the way she looked at the world. It also changed the questions she began asking.
Visits to museums with her children became different experiences. “We would be walking forever before we saw faces and stories like ours,” she said.
At the same time, she watched stories unfold across the country involving Black children and teenagers—from school policies targeting Black hairstyles to the deaths of young Black men whose names became part of the national conversation.
“I remember getting online at this time and having arguments with perfect strangers,” she said. “‘Do you see what’s happening? Why are you not helping? Why is no one paying attention?’ I just remember burning myself out. One day, I sat down, and I just started creating.”
Those experiences became the foundation of her work.
When asked whether creating helps her process difficult emotions, she said, “It does until it doesn’t. I don’t know that I ever come through on the other side. I just have an outlet to release them.”
Maybe because of that process, many of the works contain layers that viewers never notice at first glance.
“I wanted the viewer to be drawn in,” she said. “Then I wanted them to look beyond the beauty of the sitters, beyond the beauty of the gold and everything else. Then I wanted them to look at the labels, and then I wanted them to look me up, and to look into the meanings behind the work.”
One example is ‘Truth Soft Served,’ which features her daughter holding vanilla ice cream while standing behind strands of red, white, and blue.
The image tells a story many viewers may never have heard—that enslaved chef James Hemings and later Augustus Jackson helped shape the vanilla ice cream enjoyed today, though history rarely credits their contributions.
“The piece really just tells the story of how Black people are present,” she said. “Our stories exist. We have contributed so much, but we still remain behind the veil of America, often hidden and often erased.”
As the nation begins commemorating the 250th anniversary of American independence, Chatmon believes those stories are essential to understanding the country’s history.
That idea also connects to the exhibition’s title, *Declaration*, presented during the Academy Art Museum’s Juneteenth celebration.
Chatmon shared another example that continues to shape her work.
While grocery shopping, her young daughter saw her carrying a watermelon and quietly said, “Mommy, that’s racist.”
The comment startled her.
Researching the history of that stereotype led Chatmon to learn how watermelons became symbols of Black economic independence after emancipation, before racist caricatures transformed them into symbols of mockery..
“It was hurtful to me that my daughter had already inherited the idea that there was something shameful about being Black and holding a watermelon,” she said.
That discovery reinforced the questions she hopes visitors carry with them after seeing her work.
“I want us to think about the inherited beliefs that we have that oftentimes didn’t really belong to us,” she said. “I want us to question why we have those beliefs and uncover where they came from.”
She paused before adding this final thought.
“Our children inherit what we don’t resolve,” she said.
This Friday, July 3 (the museum is open until 7 pm), is First Friday in Easton and will serve as the closing reception and the final opportunity to experience Tawny Chatmon’s exhibition. It also ties beautifully into the Academy Art Museum’s broader celebration of the 250th anniversary of our nation’s founding. https://academyartmuseum.org/
