Ayanna Jolivet Mccloud

“…You see, in my view a writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden. In my view a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway…”
~ Junot Diaz, from Becoming a Writer

Ayanna Jolivet McCloud: Documentations of Rhythm (detail)

Ayanna Jolivet McCloud: Documentations of Rhythm (detail)

From Glasstire review by Ben Judson of Self-Revolution at Unit B (Gallery) in San Antonio:

“…Now we are confronted with a bit of a dilemma. In a show ostensibly about identity, in which all other works are photographic in nature with human subjects, Ayanna Jolivet McCloud throws us a curve-ball:

Documentations of Rhythm: 12×12 canvases painted gold with scratches and punctures. I reviewed the list of influences on McCloud’s website (a page which was taken down as I wrote this post), and figure we might as well consider this Lucio Fontana + DJ Screw. That kind of statement is probably why she no longer lists influences on her website. Still, those two links tie it all together, at least in my mind, bookending the word “revolution,” scratching and cutting us through all the permutations of media as freedom and media as oppression. This dynamic has played out perhaps most dramatically in black psyches subjected to caricatures of themselves propogated by their oppressors, who in turn captured the powerful art of the black community, dissemenated on black vinyl in white sleeves. But it’s a dynamic that has victimized us all, and set us all free.

“Matter, colour and sound in motion are the phenomena whose simultaneous development makes up the new art” — Lucio Fontana

“I ain’t gonna say nothin, I’m gonna let my hands do the talkin” — DJ Screw”

(Original review here)

Action 2: Materialize breath by blowing
Action by: Ayanna Jolivet Mccloud
Location: Houston, Texas

one hundred black women, one hundred actions is a performance of critical actions, gestures and movements by one hundred black women from around the world to be documented on this website and then performed by one hundred black women in various public and private sites.

studies.

A  return to painting after more than 5 years. Primarily spatial explorations, new works are minimal, internal, and tactile. Attempts to frame negative space, the unseen, and rhythm.

Studies for a new installation, including gospel singers, approximately 7. Also needed: open land, person performing repeated action (preferably black woman with a particular history), desk or table, chair, birds. Actions: Gospel singers will sing oooohs and aahhhs and mmms and occasional rejoices. Action to take place in Texas, possibly Houston.