Dancing in the Diaspora
Autumn T. Thomas: Dancing in the Diaspora
Understudy
890 C 14th Street, Denver, CO 80202
February 3-26, 2023
Admission: Free
Review by Raymundo Muñoz
For a few weeks in February, Understudy invites visitors to experience Dancing in the Diaspora, a solo exhibition of new works by Denver-based artist Autumn T. Thomas. Best known as a woodworker, Thomas branches out and fills the arts and culture incubator space with a combination of mobile, wall-mounted, and free-standing sculptures that act together with LED screens and digital projections. Inspired by her recent artist residency in Suriname and her aim to reveal the hidden soul of her pieces, Thomas finds new connections with her ancestors and challenges her own practice through works that are moving in more ways than one.
An exterior view of Understudy with Autumn T. Thomas’s exhibition Dancing in the Diaspora on display. Image by Thadeaous Mighell.
Writing displayed on an LED screen states that it was only after living with people that “looked like me, laughed like me, whose skin and smiles shone like mine, that I could experience my true self.” As part of an artist residency sponsored by Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator (DVCAI), Thomas spent much of October 2022 living with, learning from, and working with Maroons and artists in Suriname.
The title window of Autumn T. Thomas’s exhibition Dancing in the Diaspora at Understudy. Image by Thadeaous Mighell.
Her own family history traces back to the Caribbean nation and the Maroon people, descendants of enslaved Africans who escaped capture. While the place and the culture were foreign to the artist in many ways, Thomas nevertheless experienced a sense of belonging. Additionally, Autumn spent time with master woodworkers, learning traditional chipping techniques used to form their medium.
Autumn T. Thomas, The Weight of Growth, concrete, Wenge wood, Purpleheart wood, Padauk wood, and resin, 72 x 60 x 7 inches. Image by Raymundo Muñoz.
In her own clean and natural abstract designs, Thomas bends whole African hardwoods with repeated cuts—a metaphor for the emotional cuts she endures as a female African-American woodworker. While her methods and those of the artists she met in Suriname differ, the “connection to the nature of the wood” is similar in her eyes. [1]
A detail view of Autumn T. Thomas’s Reverberations, Padauk wood, resin, copper, and wood screws, 30 x 20 x 1 inch. Image courtesy of the artist.
Thomas’s experience in Suriname was life-changing, affecting her “on a molecular level,” and in her mind it revealed a direct tie between her woodworking and her distant ancestors. She relates, “Since I started working with wood, I felt like I’m supposed to do it, but I didn’t know why. [In Suriname] I feel like I belong [...] and I’m doing a thing that has been passed down to me.”
Autumn T. Thomas’s Reverberations, Padauk wood, resin, copper, and wood screws, 30 x 20 x 1 inch each. Image by Raymundo Muñoz.
Along with a deeper connection to community in a historical context, Thomas is exploring a deeper connection to self in the present through references to dance. In Reverberations, segmented wooden circles and arcs float and gently twirl by the windows, casting shadows on the floor and walls. There is a quiet grace to their movement, contrasting with the bustling exterior environment of Denver’s Convention Center adjacent to Understudy.
A still image of a video projection of the dancer Alia Kache, which is part of Dancing in the Diaspora. Image courtesy of the artist.
Projected behind The Weight of Growth sculptural installation, an image of dancer Alia Kache playfully morphs with digitally-rendered shadows and covers the angular walls of the space. The curved forms and changing shadows all act in concert, reminiscent of moving bodies that sway, spin, and step to the rhythm of the maker. Thomas describes the implied dance in her sculptures as “freedom of movement [...] and that curving of the structure is my way of dancing around things that make me mad [...] around bias or low expectations.”
A view of the projected shadows in Dancing in the Diaspora. Image courtesy of the artist.
The artist also considers the dancing shadow the “soul of the piece,” though it tends to be less recognized. Indeed, while forms remain essentially consistent in appearance, shadows can travel freely, stretching and bending shape in response to light. This mimics the way the artist feels about herself. She states, “I look stoic, straight-faced, mad [...] here’s the way I present myself because I have to or have been trained to…but my shadow is over here having a blast.”
One of the sculptures in Autumn T. Thomas’s Concrete Fragment Triptych, concrete and wood, 13 x 5 x 3 inches. Image by Raymundo Muñoz.
While some works in Dancing in the Diaspora physically move, others remain still but are emotionally moving all the same. In contrast to the polished, light, and elegant wooden sculptures, chunky concrete-based works—a new medium for the artist—are also featured. These pieces substitute concrete for wood as the main structural material, accentuated by woodblock “cuts” that replace the transparent resin that Thomas uses in other works. Though the visual effect is similar to the kerfing method of bending wood that the artist often employs, the new process and medium is totally different and not without its challenges.
Autumn T. Thomas, Concrete Fragment Triptych, concrete and wood, 13 x 5 x 3 inches, with text on a LED screen. Image by Raymundo Muñoz.
Prior to embarking on her artist residency in Suriname, the first version of the large circular central piece of The Weight of Growth that Thomas made broke in the process. It was a crushing failure for the artist, but the trip revealed some powerful truths. She notes, “I was in a broken place, and I needed that trip [...] I needed to break a thing so that I could see the progress that I made in myself.” She adds, “It becomes this metaphor for what it feels like to constantly rebuild yourself and to continue to be okay.” Remnants of that material failure are wall-mounted with pride and respect as Concrete Fragments triptychs, supplemented by LED screens that state: “Concrete breaks, but it cannot break me.”
Autumn T. Thomas, The Weight of Growth, concrete, Wenge wood, Purpleheart wood, Padauk wood, and resin, 72 x 60 x 7 inches. Image courtesy of the artist.
Visually slicing The Weight of Growth in half is a Purpleheart wood element that cuts through straight, like a saw blade, but bends upward as it exits the ring. Purpleheart is a rare African wood known for its striking natural purple color, lightly stained to allow the wood’s natural beauty to shine through. In this particular piece, it visually softens the heavy elements that it structurally binds.
A close-up view of the Purpleheat wood and concrete of Autumn T. Thomas’s sculpture The Weight of Growth. Image courtesy of the artist.
Wooden arcs and wave-like forms surround the work, echoing similar shapes seen throughout the show, reverberating like water ripples from a large droplet that falls into a pool. Finally, emanating from the sculpture are projected shadows, playing with our expectations and drawing attention to their changing nature. Admittedly, there is much to behold here.
Autumn T. Thomas’s Reverberations, Padauk wood, resin, copper, and wood screws, 30 x 20 x 1 inch. Image by Raymundo Muñoz.
While precarious and vulnerable to some degree, the installation as a whole works as an ambitious blend of heavy and light, physical and digital, still and moving; and it says a lot about the artist. In musing on her role as an artistic trailblazer in her own family, Thomas reflects, "If I allow myself to be the big drop, then maybe I can create those reverberations.” With newfound connections and a drive to push her boundaries, Autumn Thomas’s shadow dances on.
Raymundo Muñoz is a Denver-based printmaker and photographer. He is a current artist-in-residence at RedLine Contemporary Art Center and director/co-curator of Alto Gallery. Ray is guided by the principle that art is a bridge, and it connects us to ourselves and each other across time and space.
[1] These and subsequent quotes are from my interview with Autumn T. Thomas.
