Every 10 years, I paint the Harlem Swimming Team based on James Van Der Zee’s iconic 1925 photograph. The project tells me where I am, what I've learned, and everything I didn't learn in art school. I love this photograph. James Van Der Zee posed these kids in a gym that was clammy and cold. They just had swimming lessons. They are trying to inhabit these lanky bodies that don't know what they're doing yet. There’s a sense of discomfort in growing up and facing the world, and I feel that each of them exudes this sincere joy and terror, and that's what I want to capture.
THE HARLEM SWIMMING TEAM PROJECT
Harlem Swimming Team, 2016
Medium: Oil, iron oxide, acrylic, copper salt, collage
Harlem Swimming Team, 2006
ARTIST STATEMENT
I love working with high-contrast imagery, bringing out the character of a subject with shadow and light. I work hard on depth of field and I really use it to express the fight with gravity. Everyone is in a continuous fight with gravity. Your arms, your legs, your head, the way your neck moves, it's all got to come together and work together against the gravity inside your body. That's what I want to portray, that is my subject matter. That is my excuse to pick up a brush, and once I arrive at the answer that is this subject, then I have to let go. I have to let it rust. I oxidize with copper salts and give it back to wherever I took it from. So that time takes place. Then, adding collage is like introducing a character-driven plot. It is what draws you in and makes every single part, an elbow or a toe or the side of a cheek, have relevance. And that's what draws you in, this deep sense of detail that holds the subject matter together.
- Charlotta Janssen