Kate Oh Gallery proudly announces “This Happened,” an exhibition of artworks by Sandra Moore. The center of the work is a series of painted tableaux, a storyboard about the behaviors of whites with people of color from about 1500 to the present day.
The Artist (who is white) believes that education about the history of slavery and its aftermaths has been distorted and mostly concealed from whites, by whites. However this history continues to move underfoot for us all, and new thinking toward understanding this history, particularly from the perspective of people color, is becoming available to us all.
Commencing in the infamous Fall of 2016 “This Happened” was created over 2 years. The artist acknowledges “a lot of homework to do, which is ongoing.” She states “facing American racial history is the untangling of a Gordian Knot.” Not polemical, literal or historical in intention, This Happened is an attempt to respectfully join the conversation in art about race, with the hope for more conversation. Sandra studied art and filmmaking at Yale and made experimental films composed of many drawings. The artist went on to teach at Cooper Union in NYC and showed her work in the U.S. and Europe, including work at three Whitney Biennials and two shows at the Re Institute. This Happened will be her first solo show in NYC.
However, she was simultaneously drawn to the study of medicine and went on to practice as a physician. She states that the art of medicine has been beautiful and fulfilling for her, although the rigors of medicine precluded adequate time for reverie and art making. In 2015, Sandra was able to return to making art.