By Ernie Barnes

Ernie Barnes was a professional athlete, artist, actor, and author.  From a young age, his parents encouraged him to read art books and listen to classical music.  During school, Barnes would be bullied for being overweight, which led to him sketching alone. This is how the school’s football coach found Barnes and encouraged him to use his size in athletics.  That was the beginning of Barnes’ athletic career, which earned him a scholarship through college and launched him into the NFL. Barnes would always look for time to work on his art and became known for sketching during his breaks.  After his fractured foot ended his football career, Barnes fully committed to his artistic side, creating paintings for the NFL, Olympics, NBA, and more.

Barnes had a very distinct style, filled with energy and motion, with a few key symbolic traits. Barnes depicted Black people as lanky yet muscled, to show a struggle with both body and spirit.  He also painted people with closed eyes, because he viewed people as being blind to the humanity in others. He reflects, “Blinded by a lot of things that have, perhaps, initiated feelings in that light. We don’t see into the depths of our interconnection. The gifts, the strength, and potential within other human beings. We stop at color quite often. So one of the things we have to be aware of is who we are in order to have the capacity to like others. But when you cannot visualize the offerings of another human being you’re obviously not looking at the human being with open eyes.” “We look upon each other and decide immediately: This person is black, so he must be… This person lives in poverty, so he must be…” During the “Black is beautiful” movement, Barnes was inspired to create his work Beauty of the Ghetto, a piece depicting aesthetics of the place many Black people might consider themselves trapped in.

Barnes has multiple works of art depicting the importance of grandmothers to the Black community.  One of his last works before his death, Barnes’ piece Grandma’s Hands, commissioned by his friend Bill Withers, depicts a grandmother stitching her grandson’s pants as the boy plays with a toy.  Another work, Angel in Training, shows the back of a grandmother as she kneels and prays. Yet another piece, Sticks and Stones, shows a mother and daughter, in graduation robes, kneeling and embracing the grandmother, who stands tall and proud.  The postures of these people show the gratitude of the younger generations to the older ones, who struggled and persisted to give these younger generations the opportunities they now have.

Visit the UTA Artist Space to see a virtual show “Liberating Humanity from Within” of Ernie Barnes’ work. The exhibition was curated by Ernie Barnes himself prior to his death in 2009 and was never formally presented as an exhibition until now.

http://utaartistspace.com/viewingrooms/liberating-humanity-from-within/