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Visual artist, Che Baraka.

---Hannibal Lokumbe, CD, 'African Portraits".


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"Journey", Che Baraka, illustration for "God, Mississippi, and A Man Called Medgar". (Click to enlarge)

(Written by Hillary N. Sleets, a contributing editor of ARTnews)

He is 43 years of age and has produced a body of work that spans twenty-seven years. From 1975 through 1995, he has participated in thirty exhibitions, ten of them one-man shows. His work has been shown in places considered crucibles of one art form or another; New York, New Orleans, Chicago, Paris, Rome, and Senegal. He is revered by a multi-generational and select group of black painters, writers, musicians, and African American intellectuals. His work is in the collections of an even more selective circle, comprised of giants of industry, education, culture, politics, and society. Moreover, it may safely be said he is an "unknown artist". This irony was best expressed by a long time collector of his work and other African American painters; the American jazz great, musician/composer, Marvin Hannibal Peterson (Hannibal Lokumbe):

"It never ceases to amaze me how disconnected is that certain clique of self-proclaimed keepers of Western culture. There is an inability to hear or see the artistic power of many extraordinary and important artists. This might be the result of racial or gender attitudes, the artist's lack of media exposure, or simple ignorance. However, of those who have experienced Che Baraka's work and subsequently ignored it, I can draw only one conclusion. They are only attuned to the worst defining aspects of the art world --- namely, money, marketing, hype, and spiritual bankruptcy. The opportunities to experience his work are largely ignored because these same elements are devoid of the necessary awareness it takes to enter an 'open secret'."

The cited quotation was Hannibal's response.to , the question, "Who is this artist?", posed by a well known art critic during a press conference held after the world premiere of Lokumbe's most recent work, God, Mississippi, and A Man Called Medgar. The Newark Symphony Orchestra commissioned Che Baraka to create sixteen original works for the event.

This grand oratoria, explored and cronicled the life and work of the pioneer civil rights activist, Medgar Evers. Its first performance was at the New Jersey Center for the Performing arts and The Newark Symphony Orchestra, which commissioned Baraka to create stage pieces and works for the opera.

Hannibal's criticism of some considered to be arbiters of contemporary western art and culture, may be valid. However, he does risk the accusation of expressing a strong bias, having had a close and long enduring friendship with Baraka, since their meeting in 1975. In addition, this relationship has allowed him to acquire many of the artist's best works before their public exhibition. Also suggestive of questionable objectivity, is the fact that Baraka's work has played some small, but significant roles, in several of Hannibal Lokumbe's musical offerings. He readily admits that the 1978 composition for trumpet, The Storyteller, on his album, Angels of Atlanta, was inspired by Che Baraka's painting of the same name and which Hannibal purchased in 1977. Both artists are presently colloborating on a major work, The Dogon Project, to be presented in 2004.

That Baraka remains an "open secret" does not surprise. That status is part of his own design. Though he is a prolific painter and opportunities to exhibit abound, he has always been almost eccentrically selective in his choice of exhibition venues. Since 1975, with a few exceptions, he has chosen to exhibit only in small community arts organizations and obscure galleries displaying ethnic art. Also remarkable is his persistence in shutting out the noise and criteria for success in the western art world as it has evolved since the 1970s. Political art, body art, environmental art, video art, flamboyant figuration, installation art---they all seem as removed from Baraka's esthetic as his recognition factor is from the bastions of Western art and culture.

Latrissa Gordon is a vice president of the investment firm, Stanley Morgan. She is also Che Baraka's younger sister and his dealer. She expresses her brother's philosophical approach in relatively simple and perhaps the most accurate terms: "He just keeps doing his thing. It's a very single-minded pursuit."

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(Written by Arnold Gordon, Arts Editor, New York City Sun 1989. Reprinted here exclusively, with the permission of the author).

For the last two years, Ché Baraka has been exploring a single theme in his large-scale paintings and assemblages: spirituality as a physical system governed by non-physical principles, laws by which spirit operates and manifests. This is rather a theoretical topic, yet Baraka offsets it by grounding his works in a virtuoso painting technique and metaphorical images that have their resonance in the "philosophy" of quantum mechanics. It is a delicate balance, which he pulls off frequently though out the exhibition, "Spiritual Realism."

Worthy of note, but not the only evidence of his extraordinary talents, was the series called "Magical Procession" in which Baraka uses a palette of burnt umber, and cadmium reds as though they were layered sheets of fabric. In one, a group of three horned figures, both human and animal-like move in single file across the length of the canvas. The forms are bathed in a chiascurio light provided by a pregnant and ancient full moon against an eldritch night sky; like some half remembered primordial archetypal ritual. The thick daubs of purplish blue paint form the night sky and reflect available light, reading like clusters of twinkling stars. This is countered by the quick and confident scrumbling of brown and red paint that define the three figures. There is a dreamlike and visionary quality to these works, but Baraka does not let the viewer get too comfortable. If the immediacy of the brushwork and the composition pull you in, the subject matter and images will hold you transfixed.

This marvelous tension is achieved in all of the twenty-seven paintings exhibited. With an astonishing facility, that is arguably rare among young painters, Baraka never allows the sensuousness of the materials to overcome the composition. However, a spirit of experimentation is at the core of the work, and it would be a shame if Baraka curbed it.

Baraka was recently interviewed by the prominent African-American artist, Vincent Smith. A long time admirer of Baraka's work, Smith hosts a popular radio program on art issues. The interview was conducted in New York and broadcast nationally on WBAI, Pacifica Radio. Questioned as to what infleuenced the works comprising "Spiritual Realism", Baraka stated that his inspiration for this body of works are to be credited to his extensive study and research of the ideas and writings of individuals such as; W.B. Yeats, Robert Persig, Molefi Kete Asante;Jesus of Nazareth; and the theorectical physicists, Bohm and Bohr; among others.

I am not prepared to comment here, upon the manner in which such a philosophically diverse ---- and in some instances, intellectually contradictory ---- grouping of profound thinkers may or may not have influenced his works. What is clear, is that Baraka shares with these persons of compelling philosophies and perceptions, the ability, and will to express what he thinks, and believes. He does this with a singular courage, talent, and intelligence. In addition, it is of no small significance that as a profoundly gifted artist, whom happens to be an African-American, he perseveres in spite of the prevailing societal, cultural, and artistic constraints. The individuals that inform his belief system did not play it safe and neither does he.

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