Heritage Collection
The heritage collection features work inspired by Black American history. Charica Daugherty is a biracial Black American woman who has a love for history and her racial heritage. The following pieces reflect her journey of exploring her racial and cultural identity.
Charica describes painting Freedwoman Nursing
Freedwoman Nursing
Freedwoman Nursing is a portrait of Black American woman nursing her child during post the Emancipation Proclamation. Enslaved mothers often faced the trauma of having their infant children taken from them. Children could be separated from their mothers and sold to other plantations at any moment. The emancipation proclamation which began the steps to the abolition of slavery in America sparked a ray of hope for the future of the United States. This hope would also create a new dimension of protection for the Black American mother and child bond.
My desire with Freedwoman Nursing is to capture this hope through the gentle yet moving image of a mother nursing her infant child. The sky is an airy light blue with a billowy cloud rising as a symbol of hopeful progress in the United States of America.
Black Wall Street Rising, 48 X 60, Oil on Canvas
Black Wall Street Rising
Black Wall Street Rising personifies the restoration of Greenwood and the concept of black entrepreneurship in Tulsa after the massacre through the form of a classic Black American nude form. She embodies the weight of sadness from the past but also holds the hope of the future. An artistic expression of the Greenwood district circa 1920 is underneath the classical nude form. The image of smoke from the burning buildings is transformed into flowers to reflect the rising of Black Wall Street after the destruction of the massacre. The piece is about hope and progress for the future while processing the pain from the past.