SHAN Wallace’s latest collage is full of life—people young and old, sitting, standing, eating, dancing, all amidst a colorful array of signs hawking everything from crab meat and oysters to lake trout and snowballs. And through it all, there is one main character, which serves as both the backdrop of many of these photographs and the artwork’s ultimate destination: Lexington Market.

“I’ve been going to Lexington Market for most of my life,” says Wallace, 31, an East Baltimore native who grew up visiting the historic downtown landmark, circa 1782, with family and friends. “As a photographer, I felt called to document its history.”

Last year, in partnership with market developer Seawall Development, the Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts, and the Municipal Art Society of Baltimore City, Lexington Market chose four teams of local artists to decorate its new digs, which, after two years of construction, are slated to open this month between Paca and Eutaw streets near Fayette.

Created with the help of food historian and High on the Hog author Jessica B. Harris, Wallace’s collage, pictured behind the artist above, will serve as a sort of centerpiece for the new space. At 31 by 14 feet, it will be printed on fabric and installed above a sprawling central staircase, featuring images from both her Golden Time of the Hour and The Avenue series, both of which depict Black life in Baltimore with spirit and care.

“This is my offering to Lexington Market and to the people of Baltimore,” says Wallace of her work, which has yet to be named, noting that its creation required many visits to the market. “Because this is a piece that will be hanging for a really long time, and because of the pressure I put on myself, I didn’t want to [omit any aspects] of the market.”

 

“I’m hoping that this art helps us remember the old market of our lifetime.”

 

Other art will include murals envisioned by Ernest Shaw, sculptures by both of the mother-son duo Oletha DeVane and Christopher Kojzar, and metal artists Reed Bmore and Nick Ireys. For each, the mission was clear: to bridge the gap between the old Lexington and the new.

A painter and educator, Shaw was commissioned to curate four 16-foot murals on the market exterior, which, like Wallace’s installation, celebrate the Black Baltimoreans who frequented the market and the Black culture that proliferated there. He enlisted the help of his mentor, Morgan State University art professor Guy Jones, and fellow painter Christopher Batten.

“Sometimes, new facilities and new things change the ethos of a treasure—I hope that doesn’t happen here,” says Shaw. “Lexington Market is a full, complete, authentic depiction of Baltimore City. I want people to look at my work and feel that they’re a part of this shiny new building.”

At 53 years old, the West Baltimore native remembers childhood visits with his father and brother to Lexington Market, where they would purchase pound cake, Utz potato chips, and Polish sausages.

“When I was only three or four years old, I would walk with my dad from our apartment on Division Street to Lexington, downtown,” says Shaw, noting that it was also an afternoon hangout after high school with classmates. “As young adults, some of those same friends became jazz musicians and they would perform there.”

As for Wallace, she hopes her installation will help preserve the magic of that market of so many Baltimoreans’ memories.

“I’m hoping that this art helps us remember the old market of our lifetime—remember the people who made this market good, remember the old days, and celebrate them,” she says.

Ernest Shaw heard the news that Toni Morrison had died while he was driving to Station North Arts Café Gallery for breakfast.

“It’s a family atmosphere there, and that’s all everyone was talking about,” Shaw says, noting owner Kevin Brown had founded the James Baldwin Literary Society in Baltimore decades earlier. “As I was listening to the conversation, I started searching images on my phone.”

By afternoon—following a stop for spray paint at nearby Artist & Craftsman Supply—the muralist and longtime city arts teacher found himself in North Howard Street’s Graffiti Alley, putting the finishing touches on a large-scale, pop-up work of Morrison, who won a Pulitzer for her novel Beloved.

By evening, the soulful portrait had gone viral, and Shaw spent the next two days, including his 50th birthday, in the alley-turned-tourist-attraction doing interviews. “I’d found a photo when she was younger I liked initially, but I wanted something instantly recognizable—from the period when she became known to the world,” Shaw says. “I consider [her death] the acquiring of an ancestor. She earned that status. The portrait was my way of asking for permission to move forward.”

Situated behind Motor House—the arts venue where Shaw maintains a studio—Graffiti Alley, as one might anticipate, has a colorful history. Not visible from the street, the L-shaped alley had long been a receptacle for trash, used needles and condoms, and, occasionally, graffiti before artist Sherwin Mark bought the abandoned Lombard Office Furniture building and transformed it into the Load of Fun complex in 2005. (Burlesque star and then-tenant Trixie Little suggested the moniker, pointing out Mark only needed to remove some Lombard Office Furniture lettering.) Taking over in 2015, Motor House’s name pays homage to the city’s first Ford dealership, which predated the furniture store.

Immediately after Load of Fun opened, more graffiti writing began appearing in the alley. Mark appreciated the artwork; City officials did not. He was cited for refusing to cover over the graffiti and eventually a City crew took matters into their own hands with white primer. When racist slogans and gang symbols shot up on the suddenly stark canvas, Mark, with the support of local business owners, convinced officials to allow the graffiti writers to return.

Today, while the penalty in Maryland for graffiti can include a sentence of up to three years and a $2,500 fine, Graffiti Alley remains the one place in the state where the practice is tolerated. Attracting artists on a daily basis, the work in the alley remains almost constantly in flux. In recent years, the space has hosted a chamber music concert, an aerial arts festival, and too many weekend dance parties to count.

It’s by coincidence Shaw’s portrait of Morrison serves as an outdoor extension of his show inside Motor House—Testify! A Life’s Time of Emerging Blackness—which includes paintings of Baldwin, Nina Simone, and Thelonius Monk.

“I’m not used to spraying paint. When I do a mural it’s brushes and rollers, but I can practice here,” Shaw says, gesturing toward the Morrison wall, adding he’s picked up tips from accomplished Baltimore street artists Nether and Gaia.

He notes graffiti writers don’t typically appreciate the realistic portraiture work he does—particularly in a space like Graffiti Alley that they’ve claimed for themselves. “I did a Pablo Picasso that got covered right away,” he says. “Same with a blue-on-black John Coltrane portrait that was framed in a nice spot. Same with a [Grammy-winning jazz trumpeter] Roy Hargrove that I did after he died. That one meant a lot to me, because we were the same age and I’d followed his career. The next day, my signature was crossed out and someone had taken my Roy Hargrove portrait and put a different portrait on top of it.

“What can you do? You get used to it because you have to. Everything in life is changing all the time,” Shaw says, taking a long pause. “But yeah, truth is, I’ve been peeking out of my studio and checking every morning to see if the Toni Morrison portrait is still up.”

Ernest Shaw will host a guided tour of his solo exhibition —“Testify! A Life’s Time of Emerging Blackness”—at the Motor House, 120 W. North Ave., October 16, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

For decades, Ernest Shaw’s large-scale murals and mixed media portraits have been integral landmarks in Baltimore City. In 2017, Shaw was awarded the Ruby’s Artist Grant for Visual Art. The artist used those earnings to curate a series of community dialogs that interrogated stereotypes and presumptions about black masculinity.

Those conversations informed two large bodies of work: a series of mixed media works on canvas of historic African American cultural and political figures, and a collection of graphite works on paper that feature portraits of women who have experienced abuse or sexual violence. Selections from both of those series will be on view in the exhibition TESTIFY! A Life’s Time of Emerging Blackness, which debuts July 11 and runs at the Motor House gallery in Station North through September.

Inspired by Carvaggio’s use of light and shadow, as well as Dunbar and DuBois’ theories about the duality of black identity, Shaw immortalizes prominent thought leaders, creatives, and historic figures. Among them are James Baldwin, Nina Simone, Wole Soyinka, Thelonius Monk, George Stinney Jr., and Okwui Enwezor—along with others whose work and walk have indelibly transformed the world.

“The history of this country should be illustrated not just told.” Shaw shared during our studio visit. “I want people to ask questions. I want people to experience the work and to be activated by whatever they bring to the work.”

Shaw’s style is unmistakable. The portraits he renders employ rhythmic gestural marks and stand as polyphonic mixed media compositions that are as free and eloquent as jazz itself. His portraits riff on realist and surreal adaptations of mythic figures—outliers whose likenesses have been reproduced countless times. Sometimes, a reproduction can flatten rather than elevate a legacy.

Some artists crumble under the pressure to visualize lifelike depictions of cultural giants. How do you capture Monk’s moody-blue brilliance or realize the celestial countenance of Sun Ra in a two-dimensional painting? How can you encompass the cutting wit of Baldwin’s scholarship or the brooding radicality of Simone’s timeless anthems in a singular portrait? Shaw culls a history of transformative black creative genius to found new monuments that declaratively refuse to be forgotten.

The iconography that Shaw incorporates in his portraits draw from traditional African Diasporic spiritual systems that have been invoked to heal, transmute, and transcend our corporeal forms. Loosely sketched and realistically detailed renderings of Yoruba masquerades, Dogon symbols, and Guinea Monkey Masks, hover like protective apparitions behind and around his subjects. The masks serve as a tether that binds the 19th, 20th, and 21st century figures to precolonial African narratives.

In George Stinney Jr., (2019), a charcoal work on paper, Shaw renders a realist profile and front facing mugshot of fourteen-year-old George Stinney Jr., the youngest person in American history to be executed by electric chair. Stinney was accused of murdering two white girls in Alcolu, South Carolina in 1944. Though Stinney was convicted in just ten minutes, evidence erected seventy years after his execution exonerated his death and acknowledged his wrongful conviction.

American history is rife with these kinds of horrific injustices. Black children are regularly prosecuted as adults. Biases in the criminal justice systems presume the criminality rather than the innocence of black men and women. Shaw’s inclusion of Stinney among portraits of entertainers and scholars is telling.

“I want folks to look at the portrait and learn more about the story of George Stinney,” Shaw noted. “I want them to become more aware about the works of someone like James Baldwin or Nina Simone.”

The portrait is tinged gray and blue. The expression on the boy’s face is solemn and haunting. Stinney is Freddie Gray and Tamir Rice, and the countless others who have been killed before technology could be leveraged to enforce accountability. Despite our advances, Stinney’s portrait stands as a troubling testament about a legacy of perpetual systemic violence and disregard for black life.

In contrast, St. James on the Cross (2019), a golden hued acrylic portrait of James Baldwin on canvas shows the regality, power and tenacity of black identity. Baldwin is draped in a long ivory tunic highlighted with indigo and light blue patterns. He stands affirmed and unabashedly confident against a bright yellow background. His eyes directly confront our gaze. His poise demands our respect. A wooden sculpture hovers in profile over his left shoulder. A dripping sun rises above his right. Baldwin’s portrait is a stunning testament to a long tradition of creative genius.

The power of the images Shaw produces resides in the narratives he encourages us to consider. I asked him what he hoped viewers of the exhibition would walk away with. His answer was precise and direct, “Black folks are human.”

TESTIFY!, not only acknowledges an awe inspiring cadre of dynamic lives, it also emboldens us, the viewers, to reflect on the influence and impact of our collective history.

“If you can’t see the humanity in George Stinney’s life, Baldwins words, or Simone’s songs, then there are some things you need to work on,” Shaw says. “My engagement with the audience is to exhibit the humanity of melanated people. To hold up the mirror to other melanated people to say ‘I am beautiful, I have a story, a history, a culture, a language, a psychology, a cosmology, I am a part of that, I have all of that.’”