Lula Mae Blocton: Twisted Forms, Transparent Bands, 1981-1996

Press Release

Skoto Gallery is pleased to present a selection of abstract paintings and drawings from the African-American artist Lula Mae Blocton’s Twisted Forms, Transparent Band series, 1981-96. This exhibition will be her second solo show at the gallery and continues the historical survey started in the first exhibition dedicated to the 1970s. The reception is on Saturday, November 11, 3-6pm

Lula Mae Blocton is part of the post-war generation of American artists who entered art school when color in abstraction was predominantly associated with the aging abstract expressionist movement. Figuration was mostly taken up by artists looking to make socio-political statements: the practitioners of pop art, feminist art, and the Black aesthetics movement. Like many Black abstractionists, Blocton was criticized for eschewing figuration, for not painting scenes contributing to the political conversation. She was a black lesbian artist and nothing in her work was making this obvious. She claimed abstraction as a right, not the preserve of a privileged few. Indeed, she committed to an artistic abstract space where she could use references to her communities only symbolically but not literally.

Blocton made her first attempt to draw twisted shapes in 1971 with a painting named First Clear.  She then picked up what she had started there a decade later. Breaking down the elements of the series, she explains: “Each painting consists of three layers: a base of woven color or black and white lines, the illusion of twisted transparent or toned band shapes and the light reflections on the surfaces of these forms.” Sculptural modeling and perspectival construction are central to the Twisted Forms Transparent Band series of 1981-1996. Blocton’s ambitious works bring illusionism and trompe l’oeil out of the territory of representation and into abstraction. The scale of the Twisted Forms project and its high technical demands, required a step by step process.  For each painting, Blocton followed a creative sequence that started with a three dimensional model build up in the studio with cellophane bands positioned in front of paintings. She explains the next step: “Each of these works is based on an actual still life and has a precise line-drawing cartoon. However, I was never restricted to the physical inspiration, often eliminating or changing the reflections and highlights of the cellophane to enhance an abstract pattern.” Blocton created line drawings of an incredible precision level. She would use them to transfer the composition on canvas and work on the color transitions over weeks or month after.

Drawing has always been an essential part of Blocton’s creative output. The artist love of Prisma color pencils led her to develop a masterful practice over several decades. Her pencil collection is impressive, not one hue is missing. The artist keeps her pencils beautifully organized, sharp and cool. She finds deep satisfaction in the meditative state her drawing practice brings her to. She spends hours concentrating on her mark making, layering the wax-based pigments that give her surface an in-between paint and drawing feel. Their sensual texture is irresistible. They are technically astonishing and convey sentiment. Dear (1981) is a tender drawing Blocton named after her mother and dedicated to her. It is loving and festive, and at a small scale is one of the most intimate works of the series.

Most of Lula Blocton’s Twisted Forms paintings are composed in a landscape format, sometimes of panoramic scale. The artist produced several multi-panel works, allowing her transparent bands to travel with great freedom in the horizontal expanse. During that period of time, Blocton was continuously listening to jazz while painting. Charles Lloyd’s album “Forest Flower/ Sunrise & Sunset” was a favorite. She would listen to it again and again in the studio. So much so, that Blocton named her large “Sunrise Sunset”, 1992 after the piece.  Its color palette and rhythms reflect the spirit of Lloyd’s song, the span of a day and its light changes.  It celebrates oranges, pinks and fading blues before welcoming darkness.

If the content of Blocton’s art is fully abstract akin to a musical piece, Blocton’s cultural references and personal philosophy are often conveyed by her titles. Black and White Equal, 1993 is the title of one of the large works of the series which was recently presented at the Art Show 2023 organized by the ADAA. The triptych evokes a belief in racial equality as much as it addresses the compositional elements of the work. Blocton has repeatedly said: “There have been two constants in my life: a love of art—formal, precise, abstract—and a concern for human dignity and civil rights.” But to the early viewers, her work defied categorization, and often struggled to gain notice. Many artists fell through the cracks of art historical narratives, and we are only now coming to understand their contributions. Lula Mae Blocton is one of them.

Lula Mae Blocton (b. 1947) is Michigan-born and traces her heritage to a rural community near Selma, Alabama. She earned an MFA from Indiana University and retired as Emeritus Professor at Eastern Connecticut State University in 2014.

Barbara Stehle. Ph D

Art Historian and Independent curator