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Rachel Dolezal totally busted as an artist

Other than her race-change, now people are obsessing on Rachel Dolezal's artistic appropriation of the 1840 J.M.W. Turner painting into her work - artists do that all the time...  Picasso did it with Velasquez's "Las Meninas", and many other contemporary artists do that; no big deal.

The real HUGE issue with her artwork are Dolezal's fabrications and exaggerations that may extend to her artistic CV and arts resume while she lived in DC and even worse afterwards, and then about about the legitimacy of her own artwork - see these links in order:

• http://dcartnews.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-curious-case-of-artist-rachel.html
• http://dcartnews.blogspot.com/2015/06/more-on-curious-case-of-artist-rachel.html
• http://dcartnews.blogspot.com/2015/06/even-more-on-curious-case-of-artist.html

And then, working with Dave Castillo, she gets really busted here: 

http://dcartnews.blogspot.com/2015/06/what-dave-castillo-discovered-about.html 

Case closed! I can't believe not one mainstream media news organization has picked up on this! We think that she's painting on top of copyrighted photos transferred to canvas!

Wanna buy a Rachel Dolezal "original" ?

It appears that artist Rachel Dolezal is smartly taking advantage of her worldwide notoriety to hawk some artwork.

Several of her pieces are for sale here.

Her "appropriated" Turner replica is listed here for sale at $5100 - still waaaay below the $10,000 price ranges that she claimed she was getting for her artwork while a student at Howard - see that story here.



What Dave Castillo discovered about artist Rachel Dolezal

By Hook or By Crook's Dave Castillo has done some pretty impressive image detective work to expose artist Rachel Dolezal's direct copying of some movie posters for her artwork.

Here's a sample of Dave's expose - images and his thoughts from his website:

Movie Still from Pariah

 "Alike's World" "Painting" from Dolezal's blog ("Sold") 

 In my opinion "Alike's World" was likely printed onto a canvas from the photo and Dolezal then touched it up with clear acrylic gesso and paint. It is simply too accurate a copy. She regularly worked with acrylic glue (collage) back in 2012, so she would definitely know how to accomplish this. Much of her blog has to do with cutting things out of magazines. She took images that someone else provided,  glued it down and then called it "Mixed Media"

At first view, I tend to agree with Dave that this "painting" appears to be initially photo-based. That is, a digital image of the photo has been digitally printed onto a canvas and then "re-worked" with some clear acrylic medium (to give it a surface brushwork texture), and possibly some broader brushwork with a thicker medium with color-matching paint on the background buildings. The reproduction of the figure is too exact to be anything other than a reproduction on canvas.

The buildings have been worked over with a broader brushwork to blur them a little into the background, but the shadows (in most cases) are too exact in proportion and relation to the original photo to be anything other than a photo reproduction.

The sky has been worked over as well, and she went a little lazy on the left side of the painting. Five gets you ten that if I examined this painting up close, I would see thicker paint "covering" up the left side of the piece (above the shoulder of the figure) than on the figure itself. The fact that she didn't even bother to "change" some of the folds in the hoodie not only takes cojones, but artistic laziness in this, possibly the shortest fake route to a hyper realistinc painting.

There's now an interesting research challenge for some news organization to contact all the digital printing shops in the area where Dolezal lived at the time and see if she pops up as one of her customers; we may discover that a lot of Dolezal paintings have a similar substrate.

These are not paintings, they are "enhanced" appropriated photographs, which appear to violate copyrights, made up to look like hyper-realistic paintings... visit this link to see what a "real" Rachel Dolezal painting looks like...

Visit Dave's site here and see the rest of his evidence!

Update: Dolezal is selling her paintings - included those mentioned in Dave's piece, at this website: http://www.artpal.com/ - enter "Dolezal" in the search box to find them.

Even more on the curious case of artist Rachel Dolezal

Part one of my musings on several odd markers and at least one possible giant lie (yes, another lie) dealing with Rachel Dolezal/Moore's artistic footprint is here and part two is here.

Dolezal's artwork can be seen here. In fact, pretty much all the artwork by Dolezal on the Internet is what she has in that website - other than three pieces which have appeared on Ebay after the story broke out.

In her website she tells us that:

Rachel Dolezal is an award-winning Mixed Media Artist with over 20 exhibitions in 13 states, internationally, and at the United Nations Headquarters. Dolezal completed her Master of Fine Arts at Howard University, where she majored in experimental studio and minored in sculpture. 

As an artist, writer, curator and art dealer, I have read and reviewed thousands of artists' resumes over the last four decades, and I find it a little odd to discover Dolezal's lack of any significant artistic digital footprint, other than the WaPo one line mention discussed here and the one, single pre-2007 painting discussed here.  Additionally, her 2007 work with the UN is discussed here, although it deals mostly with children's work.

But where are Dolezal's "20 exhibitions in 13 states"? Why are there no references anywhere to be found? Why doesn't she have the most common of artists' resume anywhere, listing group and solo shows?

We know that while at Howard University she showed in a group show at Prince George County's Harmony Hall Regional Center Gallery in the "Fast Forward: Visual Voices 2002" group show curated by Takema M. Robinson, who curiously wrote at the time that "this group of emerging black artists is looking backward with equal speed."

Dolezal was still "non Hispanic white" at the time, cough, cough.

That's one show and one state; there's zipfuck on the Interwebs that I can find showing Rachel Dolezal or Rachel Moore (her married name while she lived in the DMV) in any other art exhibition (other than her MFA thesis work discussed below), including the "convention centers around the nation" that she apparently exhibited in during her tenure at Howard (1999-2002) where she sold art, "the highest for around $10,000."

Her website also has cryptic references to artwork "on tour in Maryland" and also notes that this installation below was "Last exhibited in Washington, DC on Pennsylvania Avenue."

"Hell"
Mixed Media by Rachel Dolezal, c. 2002

This rather impressive work was apparently part of her final MFA thesis work at Howard (that University's Art gallery is located on Sixth Street, NW, by the way...). From Jezebel we learn that:

Dolezal’s final thesis was a series of paintings presented from the perspective of a black man and the late Dean Tritobia Benjamin, a formidable scholar whose specialty was black women in the arts, wanted to know how Dolezal felt qualified to tell this type of story as a white woman. 

“Her thesis presented an inner journey of what goes on inside the mind of a black male,” he said. “This was ten years ago but I still remember one was a three dimensional piece of a man was being consumed by a fire all the way into the ground. The rest of her work were two dimensional paintings.”

So that's two exhibitions. I'm curious to know where this rather complex piece went on tour in Maryland.

Whenever an artist puts down in a website trying to sell artwork, that some art is on tour, the next thing that you put down is the venues where that artwork will be exhibited. Twice in her website Dolezal tells us about "art on tour": the aforementioned one "in Maryland" and another tour reference to Mississippi.

No idea where and when they were on tour.


Angela
Linocut Reduction Print by Rachel Dolezal
9x12 inches - Edition of 12, c. 2007?

According to her, this very elegant linocut by Dolezal won the "Mississippi state printmaking award." If you Google that in quotes, nothing but Dolezal comes back. If you remove the quotes, a lot of things come back, none of which I can associate with any state level printmaking award or even Mississippi State University. I'm not really doubting that Dolezal won some sort of award with this excellent print, but why is she so "loose" in her discussion of where, when and what award? You're killing me Rachel!

I'm up to about four states (maybe) and the District of Columbia.

Afrika
Mixed Media Collage by Rachel Dolezal
36x30, date unknown

Now we come to Afrika, a spectacular collage where Dolezal really flexes her artistic muscles. She tells us that:

History: When the original was first shown in Jackson, MS, Jolivette Anderson (aka The Poet Warrior) and the Black Poets' Society performed. The Poet Warrior wrote "Pieces of You, Pieces of Me," an original poem based on inspiration/connection with this image.

That event was a little easier to find; here it is, but documented by the poet herself and then rather recently after Dolezal's deceit surfaced.

I think that I'm up to five states plus DC; I could continue to find the remaining states, but you get the point.

Why am I being so pedantic? Maybe Rachel Dolezal was just lazy about her artwork documentation, and also documenting it online. But why are there no digital footprints from the galleries or art centers where she exhibited?

I'm being pedantic because this immensely talented artist has clearly fabricated a lot of things in her past - not just the racial deception and possibly the hate crimes - and thus, other than her very visible artistic talent, now everything is in question.

Update: See what Dave Castillo discovered about the legitimacy of some of her painting here.

Cuban racism

A young Afro-Cuban performance artist transformed a Havana cultural center into the stage of a black hairstyle competition this weekend in a rare public commentary on racial beauty standards in Cuba, where prejudice remains widespread and largely undiscussed.

... Behind closed doors and even in public, white Cubans have been known to talk disparagingly about black Cubans in ways that have become socially unacceptable in many other countries, describing them as criminals and forbidding their children from dating Afro-Cuban schoolmates.

... Roberto Zurbano, a cultural critic and essayist at the Casa de las Americas, a Havana cultural center, said the mostly white leaders of Cuba's revolution had failed to realize the deeply rooted nature of Cuban racism and implemented race-blind policies instead of programs like affirmative action specifically designed to help black Cubans move into positions of greater influence.

Read the whole article here

More on the curious case of artist Rachel Dolezal

Yesterday I started looking at the curious case of artist Rachel Dolezal, and asked some sharp questions about her artwork, mostly fueled by her string of documented lies, not just about her race, but several other issues. You can see that post below or here.

Subsequently, more data on Dolezal as an artist while she was in the DMV following her graduation from Howard has emerged from the archives of the Washington Post, where in 2002 Moore participated in an exhibition at Harmony Hall Regional Center Gallery which was titled "Fast Forward: Visual Voices 2002," and curated by Takema M. Robinson, who curiously points out that "this group of emerging black artists is looking backward with equal speed."

I say curiously because at that time Dolezal/Moore (from what her brother says here and from what a couple of Howard University sources who knew her have told me) was still a few years away from her "switch" to black and was one of the small number of white students at Howard. So now I'm curious to know if the curator even knew Dolezal/Moore, or just selected her work based on... whatever, and never actually met Dolezal/Moore.

These nine artists, all recent or current students in the master of fine arts program at Howard University, eschew the debates currently raging over the "burden of identity," Robinson writes in the exhibition's catalogue.

"The artists amassed here have all created works that unabashedly and unapologetically explore issues of cultural identity," she wrote. "Deeply aware of their history, their work is as much about the present and future as it is about the past."

The exhibition is overwhelmingly dominated by themes relating to the life of black women. (All but one of the artists are female.) The statements can be adulatory, as in Mecca Shakoor's lovely silk screen and bead applique{acute} "Adorn Her," or rebellious, as in Rachel Moore's religion-poking installation "Hypocrisy: A Form of Godliness,"

Dolezal's brother Ezra Dolezal confirms that his sister's thoughts about transformation might have been seeded by the way that she was treated by fellow students and faculty at Howard:

Ezra believes the only reason his sister would change her identity was due to the racism she claimed to have encountered at Howard University, where she graduated with her master’s degree in fine art in 2002.

Rachel, he added, would often complain that she was treated poorly as one of only a few white students on a mostly black campus.

“She used to tell us that teachers treated her differently than other people and a lot of them acted like they didn’t want her there,” Ezra said. “Because of her work in African-American art, they thought she was a black student during her application, but they ended up with a white person.”

He said that the experience made her angry, and it was then that Rachel started being “hateful to white people.”

Of course, since this person has now a well-documented allegedly "false" string of victimism, it also sort of hard to believe her on this aspect as well, since apparently Dolezal/Moore taught classes at Howard while she was a graduate student, and perhaps even after graduation, and then she was included in this show discussed above... unless the curator didn't know that Rachel was white.

Curious uh? I am still also somewhat curious at to Dolezal's lack of a digital footprint as an artist while she was at the DMV. According to a source who is someone who knew her at Howard, she did "show in DC several times," and apparently also sold work directly, since this person also owns an original (and quite good) Dolezal charcoal done in 2005. That piece was done when Dolezal was still known as Rachel Moore and signing her work with giant "RDM" initials. My source bought it directly from Dolezal, and not from any gallery.

Other than the PG County exhibition space noted in the WaPo review, who else showed her around the DMV? Her website has no CV, although there are cryptic references to artwork "on tour in Maryland" and also notes that this installation below was "Last exhibited in Washington, DC on Pennsylvania Avenue."

"Hell" Mixed Media by Rachel Dolezal

Dolezal tells us that:

This 8'x4'x4' installation features a life-size plaster figure sculpture with 'implanted' human hair in pit, chest, & chin, an open-mouth rendering with full dental sculpting, & acrylic gloss finish. The vortex under the figure is made from recycled clear plastic plates & cups, tissue paper, concrete, wood, steel, styrofoam, & ink airbrush.
The installation was featured originally with black velvet curtains (white used here for purposes of photography), and the 6-lamp circuit was set on a motion detector, catching viewers by surprise when they walked into the curtained area. A written expose' of various ideas about hell hung outside the black velvet curtain door.
Last exhibited in Washington, DC on Pennsylvania Ave.
Vortex elements were later destroyed, and sculpture was maliciously damaged, so this photo is a memorial of the art.

Everything is a "hate" tragedy with this lady.

One comes across a lot of weird stuff when mining Google for data on any subject... so we know that Rachel Dolezal was Rachel Moore after she married and partially while she was in the DM.

Here is some weird alignment of the planets with that name and the story... there's a 2008 book by writer Brandon Massey titled "Don't Ever Tell" and that is described here as:

DARK SECRETS...
With a new identity, a new city to live in, and a wonderful new husband, Rachel Moore believes she's finally free of the demons in her past. But nothing could be farther from the truth. For the deadly secrets she thought were long buried are now on the brink of being exposed...
HAVE A WAY...
Someone has a vendetta against Rachel. Someone whom she betrayed a long time ago. Someone who is determined to make her pay--no matter what the cost...
OF COMING BACK WITH A VENGEANCE...
Now Rachel knows it's just a matter of time before her dangerous past meets up with her present--and destroys everything she's worked so hard for. Because if there's one thing that can be counted on--her enemy never forgets or forgives and will do whatever it takes to see her suffer...

Weirder and weirder...