This painting by Alfred Conteh is part of a series titled “Two Fronts,” which was recently celebrated in the monographic exhibition The Sweet Spot at Clark Atlanta University Art Museum. Grounded in the realm of portraiture, this series explores images of contemporary members of the African diaspora, placing the figures in what are often mundane environments. Conteh’s treatment of the figures, including the way he has them inhabit their surroundings, lends them a wise, gentle, heroic spiritual presence. Employing mediums such as atomized metal powder and soil, Conteh endows the surfaces of these paintings with a textural quality akin to that of the built world he paints—that of the contemporary, urban American South.

About the Two Fronts series, Conteh says, "This body of work is a visual exploration of how african diasporal societies in the south are fighting social, economic, educational and psychological wars from within and without to survive. The honest and false narratives of history embodied in this series are primarily personified in patinated colossuses that commemorate the people, culture, and battles that the populations they tower over have fought and continue to fight. We are at war on two fronts."

Artist Biography
Alfred Conteh (b. 1975, US) is a painter and sculptor who was born in Fort Valley, Georgia. His mother is an African American, and his father is from Si-erra Leone, West Africa. Conteh explores his identity and personal history from a number of different perspectives. He is concerned with the way African Americans are dealing with disparities that have been affecting their communities for generations, especially in the southern United States. He is also interested in the wider view of the entire African diaspora.