Sugar Magnolia     Serigraphy, acrylic, and oil on canvas     102 x 53     2004

Buttercup     Mixed Media on wood     12 x 12     2006

Confederate Industry   Serigraphy, Acrylic, Oil on canvas   102 by 53     2004

Moniday Morning Haze     Mixed Media on wood     14.5 by 14.5  2005

'Fugitive Monuments'

Artist Monica Lynn James honors Savannah's historic African-American sites in exhibit at the Beach Institute.

Allison Hersh l Savannah Morning News

Artist Monica Lynn James is on a mission.

In her exhibit at the Beach Institute, titled "Fugitive Monuments," James pays tribute to Savannah's rich African-American history by immortalizing some of the city's sites in intricate mixed-media paintings. In 15 experimental compositions, this Savannah College of Art and Design graduate student pays tribute to the people and places of Savannah's past.

"This series is my testimonial to Savannah's black history," she explains. "Through these images I pay tribute to the enslaved people who built this country and the sordid history of injustice that has been erased."

The idea for the "Fugitive Monuments" exhibit was inspired by a tour of Savannah presented by the Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum. During the tour, James was struck by how many places played a significant role in the city's history, yet were not honored by historic signposts or official memorials. She was also disappointed to discover the state of disrepair that characterized many of the sites that once played an important role in antebellum Savannah or during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.

James describes her exhibit as a "temporary monument," offering a portable tribute to Savannah's African-American history. From the surrealistic fervor of "First African Baptist" to the abstract splendor of "Confederate Industry," James offers a fresh, creative interpretation of Savannah's history.

James spent many hours researching Savannah's African-American history at the Georgia Historical Society, as she studied 19th-century newspapers and other archival evidence of the city's past. "Black-and-white photographs, Confederate memorabilia and narratives established a foundation for the initial drawings," she says. "I unearthed a history of plantations and segregation. However, I also wanted to portray a warmth of feeling as I paid homage to a history that was connected to my own heritage."

The fruits of her research culminate in compositions like "Sugar Magnolia," which incorporates screen printed reproductions of ads from the "Savannah Daily Gazette" that once advertised slaves for sale in downtown Savannah. By magnifying and repeating the ad for "a parcel of new negroes" across the horizontal surface of the canvas, she creates a weathered wallpaper effect. The artist then uses this historically grounded base to superimpose amorphous, abstracted white shapes that drift across the surface of the composition like clouds, ghosts or bones.

Drawing from an earthy palette of tan, mahogany, sand and sienna, "Fugitive Monuments" unites the past and the present in fresh ways, using a variety of mixed-media techniques to tell a timeless story about humanity. "I'm always drawn to the yin and the yang," says James. "There's a feeling of the antique and the modern in these compositions."

In "Eli's Dream," for example, James translates the somnambulant musings of Eli Whitney, who invented the cotton gin on a Savannah plantation, into an abstract layering of shapes and colors. The diverse colors of African-American flesh tones - from warm shades of buttermilk to glossy hues of dark chocolate - anchor a grid of interconnected geometric shapes with rounded edges that have been superimposed upon a decorative floral background.

These networks of shapes, which are reminiscent of computer motherboards or abstracted maps, seem to symbolize families or lives linked together by strong, undeniable bonds. James layers these groupings of shapes, one atop another, to suggest a sense of community that can be defined spatially on a two-dimensional surface.

"Cash Moves Everything Around Me," a large-format mixed-media painting, offers a thoughtful exploration of commerce in the American South. Symbolic references to cotton and sugar recur throughout the composition, which features criss-crossing shapes evoking ladders, circuit boards or city streets.

"Fugitive Monuments" is James's M.F.A. thesis exhibition, but it is not the first time that she has exhibited her work in Savannah. She enjoyed a successful show at the StarLander Gallery earlier this year and has exhibited her paintings in Philadelphia and Atlanta.

Originally from Pittsburgh, James earned a B.F.A. in printmaking from the Tyler School of Art. She moved to Savannah in 2002 to pursue an M.F.A. in Painting at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

"Monica is extremely talented, and her work is very fine," says Sarah Todd, program coordinator at the Beach Institute. 'The subject matter is very interesting. We're happy to share her work with Savannah."