Don’t miss St. Pete native Raheem Fitzgerald in conversation with The Factory’s Liz Dimmit this Thursday, Feb. 29, from 5:30-7 p.m. at The Factory, 2606 Fairfield Ave. S, in St. Pete. 

BY J.A. JONES | Staff Writer

ST PETERSBURG – Raheem Fitzgerald’s portraits startle with the emotional information each piece emotes.

“It’s in the eyes,” intoned his cousin Juan DaCosta. “The way they look at you.”

Fitzgerald has been a curator at The Factory in St. Pete for several years, bringing several art shows and music events to the space. “Re:Definition” is his first solo show in the space.

The description for “Re:Definition” notes that it presents Fitzgerald’s unfolding studies into art history and the Black experience. His work forms a continuum with the expressive figurative painting and politically engaged works of European and Black American artists.

Ice Cold, 2024 Raheem Fitzgerald

A St. Pete native who spent a chunk of his childhood in Atlanta, Fitzgerald returned in 2016 and has been an active member of the creative community. His evolution has included being a digital creator, DJ and founder of NHO, a lifestyle company created by himself and three friends outside a Starbucks in Atlanta.

He described his journey as embracing the artistic life with intentional decisions about everything from his singular hairstyle and demeanor — black and white images of Harry Belafonte and Sammy Davis, Jr. may offer a clue to his signature, somewhat retro clothing style of a white tee with fitted, slightly above the ankle jeans.

He’s also happy to credit the “artful tradition that preceded him,” which, according to his writing, “ultimately model a grander vision for himself and society. His work allows us to indulge in his belief in the idea of the masterpiece as an achievable aesthetic pursuit at a time when most have become disillusioned with the implication that the current economic and social order represents any semblance of a meritocracy.”

While his journey to find inspiration while presenting himself as an “icon” may be informed by named movements, he gives a nod to the Fauvists of 1920s France. His ongoing evolution as a painter ensures that his ultimate creations are self-determined. One of the artists involved in creating the “Black History Matters” mural in front of the Woodson (his was the first “T” in Matters), the bio for “Re:Definition”  notes that Fitzgerald is “looking to ‘redefine’ traditional subjects and reconstruct painting for his own purposes.”

Black Carmelina, 2024 Raheem Fitzgerald

While many of his works are strictly portraits of unnamed individuals whom Fitzgerald brings to life with rich, dark shades and haunting gazes, his interest in social and historical periods of unrest is also evident.

His examination of our fractured democracy undergirds his both whimsical and heavy painting “America Responding to War.” Painted in early 2023, after a trip to New York’s Modern Museum of Art, Fitzgerald explained, “It’s about, you know, being Black in America and like having to kind of keep it together when there’s like, excuse my language, really fucked up stuff happening around you. Those Ballerinas are dancing around a painting called The Charnel House by Pablo Picasso that features a pile of dead bodies; I went to the MoMA, and then I came back home and painted that. It’s what I think a lot of people can relate to; whether you’re Black or white, you got to keep it together in the face of some stuff that really ain’t easy. “

Another painting, “Black Congress,” is his rendering of images of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense.

Aware of his increasing abilities and craft development, Fitzgerald has considered taking training at an MFA program. He admitted that his interest is “mostly just wanting to pursue higher education. It’s funny when I said that, you know, I think a lot of people in my family were like, ‘Wow.’  My grandma said, ‘Wow, I’m so happy to hear this,’ and my mom … always knew which kind of kid I was going to be.”

Les Femme Asisse, 2024 Raheem Fitzgerald

While he may shrug off the urge to go to school for painting to make his family proud, it’s also evident that Fitzgerald is a serious painter who desires to take his raw talent to a level that will have his work in international museums. When asked how he’s moved beyond the work of a young artist who is still relying on digital tools to do work, he’s cautious about judging; instead, he attributes it to consistent work.

To his mind, his abilities are the natural product of constant woodshedding. “[I] couldn’t say, “I’m a basketball player — when LeBron James goes to the gym every day. So, I think it just comes from the fact that I do this a lot … That’s why it looks different, or that’s why it occurs differently. Probably.”

His hard work and time spent indicate that Fitzgerald is going places; another sign is his curiosity about what makes other great artists tick and his awareness that it is more than technique.

For him, learning about painting is also “studying painters and the techniques they use to produce their work; the rooms they hang out in; the conversations they had with their peers. That’s more so what I mean. It’s like painting is about the actual putting the liquid and then letting it dry into a solid onto a surface, you know, but it’s also about just other things.”

Raheem’s evolution as an artist can be seen on Instagram, where he shares his work under the handle @abstractpoet.

You can see him talk about his work in person with The Factory’s Liz Dimmit this Thursday, Feb. 29, from 5:30-7 p.m. at The Factory, 2606 Fairfield Ave. S. In partnership with the Fairgrounds St. Pete, attendees at the talk will receive discounted tickets to the Fairgrounds, which features new exhibits.

“Re:Definition” runs through March 10. Click here for more information.

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Patrick Jackson, (left), manager of education and outreach at the Woodson Museum and curator Dr. Cody L. ‘Spec’ Clark discussing the artifacts in the ‘Resilience & Revolution: An Immersion of Black Americana’ collection.

BY FRANK DROUZAS | Staff Writer

ST. PETERSBURG — Dr. Cody Clark stopped by the Woodson African American Museum of Florida on Feb. 10 to discuss his exhibit, “Resilience & Revolution: An Immersion of Black Americana,” co-curated by Montague Collection, an exhibition company dedicated to illuminating the richness and complexity of African American history through visual arts.

Clark was the program counselor for Gibbs High School’s Pinellas County Center for the Arts for more than 35 years and has been building his collection for over two decades.

Clark explained there is a distinction between Black Americana and Jim Crow art. As Jim Crow memorabilia thrived between the 1880s and the 1960s, it was created by whites and depicted exaggerated stereotypes of African Americans, such as the female “mammy,” a male “brute caricature” or the grinning young “pickaninny.”

Visit the Woodson and take a step back in time to the Jim Crow era, where you’ll explore the stark realities of discrimination.

“They are not designed by African-American people, and they are not really about our lives,” he said. “They are what the whites thought would be oppressive to African Americans.”

Black Americana includes art created by Black people or artists counseled by Black people. Clark said some believe even today that racism isn’t an issue, yet “when you look at something that has occurred in the making of thousands of these pieces … you can see the insidious work that such a thing can cause, especially in large numbers and especially in homes daily.”

Clark found most of his pieces in thrift stores and yard sales, while some of the more valuable ones came from antique shops. He pointed out that the pieces attracted his attention because while the message they send about a people is evil, they are genius in their effectiveness of what they have caused.

Before acquiring a piece, he asks himself: “What is it telling me beyond its horribleness? What is it telling me beyond its intent? What are the unintended consequences of looking in their faces?”

Clark has displayed his collection in Florida and Georgia, and it has been chiefly in front of a white audience, Clark admitted.

During the Jim Crow period, African Americans were confronted by institutional discrimination and acts of individual discrimination and generally treated as second-class citizens.

As an educator, he displayed some of these pieces in his office and discovered that his Black students didn’t experience as much discomfort with them as did white students and white faculty members.

“The Black students were able to understand a collection like this once explained,” he said.

In his experience, Clark said that white people often become nervous when the subject of racism is brought up. He said they don’t realize they’re in the fight, but they are.

“You have to be involved in the solutions of what racism is about,” Clark asserted.

He revealed that white people have given him some of these pieces, in essence, trying to unburden themselves of them.

“They had them and are afraid of them, so they believe me to be a safe place to give them. I can understand why they’re nervous, but they also believe they’re history,” Clark explained.

There have been Black people upset by his collection. Clark knows some who have acquired such items to destroy them. White people, on the other hand, don’t want to even think about their existence at all — both viewpoints are too extreme for learning purposes, he averred.

“If you don’t really look at how this could happen, you will not understand how we got here,” Clark said. “And you certainly won’t know the proper, effective ways of solving the future.”

We must acknowledge the past and must do better to understand the difference between saying or doing a racist thing and comprehending the system of racism, he affirmed,

“You can get over someone calling you the n-word,” Clark said, “but when you are caught in a system, and you really don’t know how to break that system, that’s a problem. All of us are in it.”

Touching upon the specific items, he referred to the well-known image of Aunt Jemima as the “queen” of them all. He said she feeds people, and children will not go hungry when you see her around. Figures such as this are in our lives, Clark noted, adding that he knew some white women who were “Jemimas,” who did not feed him with food but with advice and direction in life.

“Look out for the Aunt Jemimas in your own life and what they do,” he said. How were you fed? Real good food or not so good? Some of us have had to shake loose of some of what you were fed.”

Aunt Jemima with her husband, Uncle Mose.

Indicating a depiction of Uncle Mose, whose name was changed from Uncle Rastus to avoid confusion with the Cream of Wheat character; he was the husband of Aunt Jemima. Clark noted that he appeared smiling with his hat in his hand, as though he wouldn’t harm a flea, but he is really absorbing information to relay.

“He’s right there listening, paying attention,” he explained. “Not loud. Some of us have had to learn to be Uncle Mose on the inside and how to take back the information. Who is that in your life, Black or white or other ones that can quietly speak the truth to you without the bravado, without the noise, but be just as effective?”

The oldest piece, the “topsy-turvy doll,” likely made by the enslaved for whites before the Civil War, could switch its appearance from a Black girl to a white girl when turned inside out.

Dr. Cody Clark likened the topsy-turvy doll to today’s code-switching.

“There’s not a Black person in this room that doesn’t know what code-switching is about. There are times when, because you are not being met with your true self, you will have to turn into that,” he said, pointing to the doll. “Your language must change; your actions must change because the larger community — the white community — won’t understand you. You can’t get that job if you don’t know how to switch and bring it back when you come home.”

Another doll in his collection from the 1960s was of a Black girl but with “white” characteristics, notably in the style of the hair and shape of the face and nose.

Over the years, African Americans became more educated, but it had unintended consequences, he noted.

“The more educated African Americans become, the more we shoulder the work in trying to make whites comfortable with us so that we are more digestible,” Clark said.

He encouraged whites to be more active in understanding what life is like for African Americans on a daily basis, even suggesting they attend a Black church to “be the uncomfortable one surrounded around Black people and see how you feel about it and learn what that’s like.”

On Tuesdays and Thursdays after 1 p.m. through the end of the month, you can gain insight on the collection from Dr. Clark himself at the Woodson, and on Feb. 29 at 6 p.m., don’t miss the closing reception of “Resilience & Revolution,” featuring Dr. Clark, as well as Clinton Byrd and Cedric Jones of the Montague Collection.

The Woodson African American Museum of Florida is located at 2240 9th Ave. S, St. Petersburg.

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Join Dr. Cody Clark for the ‘Resilience & Revolution: An Immersion of Black Americana’ on Saturday, Feb. 10, from 5-8 p.m. 

ST. PETERSBURG – The “Resilience & Revolution: An Immersion of Black Americana” exhibit, now on display at The Woodson African American Museum of Florida, is a thought-provoking and immersive experience co-curated by The Montague Collection and Dr. Cody Clark.

The exhibition will captivate visitors by delving into the rich tapestry of African-American history and culture. The “Resilience & Revolution” is a beacon of hope, knowledge, and understanding, challenging stereotypes and celebrating the resilience and contributions of African Americans.

Visit the Woodson this Saturday, Feb. 10, from 5-8 p.m. to hear co-curator Dr. Clark as he speaks about the artifacts in the collection. Coinciding with the Second Saturday ArtWalk, the reception will allow guests to view African Americans’ relentless pursuit of justice and equality during this period through ephemera, memorabilia, and narrative.

About The Montague Collection

The Montague Collection stands as a distinguished bespoke exhibition company dedicated to illuminating the richness and complexity of African-American history through the compelling medium of visual arts. With unwavering commitment and profound reverence, we curate exhibitions that pay homage to African Americans’ vibrant legacy and profound contributions, fostering cultural understanding and inspiring a more inclusive world.

About Dr. Cody Clark

Dr. Cody L. “Spec” Clark has had a long-standing career of over 35 years with the renowned arts magnet program at Gibbs High School as the program counselor of fine and performing arts. He was educated in Georgia and completed his bachelor’s degree in psychology at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Ga.

He completed both his master’s degree and his specialist degree in counseling education at the University of South Florida in Tampa. In 2003, he finished his doctoral degree in Children, Youth, and Family counseling services at Nova Southeastern University in Ft. Lauderdale. Clark specialized in African-American youth in the visual and performing arts.

Resilience & Revolution: An Immersion of Black Americana is on display through March 1.

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