Wardell Milan (b. 1978). Amerika: Klansman, David, 2019. Charcoal, graphite, colored pencil, pastel, and oil stick on ha...

Description

Wardell Milan (b. 1978)
Amerika: Klansman, David, 2019
Charcoal, graphite, colored pencil, pastel, and oil stick on hand dyed paper
49-3/4 x 37-7/8 inches (126.4 x 96.2 cm) (sheet)
Signed and dated lower right: Wardell Milan 19

PROVENANCE:
David Nolan Gallery, New York;
Private collection, San Francisco, California.

EXHIBITED:
David Nolan Gallery, Los Angeles, pop up exhibition, "Death, Wine, Revolt: Uneventful Days," February 9-22, 2020.

Wardell Milan's work fluidly crosses drawing, collage, photography, and mixed media, especially working on hand-dyed paper or surfaces with layered mark making.
This work presents a deconstructed apparition of a Ku Klux Klan hooded figure (or fragment thereof), it's face masked in abstraction. Rather than a full, literal portrait of a Klansman, Milan's Amerika: Klansman, David fragments the symbolic iconography. The ghostly presence of hood and face suggests the persistent and haunting legacy of white supremacy. In that sense, Milan mediates between representation and disruption: he does not simply depict but unsettles.


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