ASPEN, Colorado – Foad Satterfield’s paintings convey the confidence that comes from many years of trusting his materials, process, and intuition. His misty landscapes consist of successive layers of brushstrokes that result in compositions that oscillate between representation and abstraction. “I let the paint take me where it wants to go,” he says, “each piece demands a different kind of sensibility.”
Born in 1945 in Orange, Texas, and raised in both rural Texas and Lake Charles, Louisiana, he was heavily influenced by the region’s topography. The aesthetics of these wild marshes and lush swamps still permeate his work. Growing up in southern Jim Crow, Satterfield used nature and walks in the woods to escape the harsh realities of how he and other black people he knew were often treated. An example of the racism that so permeated the area in his childhood occurred when he won first place in an art competition held for area schools. Segregation was still practiced in Louisiana and when the judges discovered that he came from a school for black children, his first place was taken away and replaced with third place. “I didn’t really understand what was going on because I had no context for segregation, so it didn’t upset me,” Satterfield told me in a conversation about his life and practice, “but my mother was traumatized”.
It is in this duality – the beauty of the natural world coupled with the tragedy of racial oppression – that a recent series of his work inspired by the life of Albert Woodfox can best be understood. Satterfield first learned of Woodfox through national coverage of his ongoing incarceration. Woodfox was a member of the Angola Three, a group of African-American inmates who were held in solitary confinement for decades, 42 years in Woodfox’s case. Originally named for the plantation that once occupied the land and officially known as the Louisiana State Penitentiary, Angola’s prison is notoriously violent, often referred to as “the Alcatraz of the South.” Woodfox was eventually released in 2015 after pleading uncontested to a lesser charge, citing his advanced age and failing health as reasons for not fighting the plea deal. He died of complications from COVID-19 in 2022 at the age of 75.
Satterfield was lucky enough to meet Woodfox before his death at All power to the people: The Black Panthers at 50, a historical exhibit held at the Oakland Museum of California that traces the roots and history of the radical political party. There he was able to present Woodfox with a monograph of his work featuring an essay by artist and writer Megan Wilkinson, which Satterfield describes as “an incredible experience”. It was Woodfox’s association with the Black Panthers that some say got him into trouble – former Angola goalkeeper Burl Cain was cited in 2008 saying that Woodfox should continue to be held in solitary confinement because he subscribed to the “black panther”.
Satterfield could identify with Woodfox because of their similar ages and backgrounds, and because he understood that many prisoners like Woodfox began introspective practices, including meditation and the study of philosophy, while being incarcerated in an effort to fill their time and maintain their composure. . In many ways, Satterfield shares this sentiment about her painting, viewing it as a ritual that affirms the continuity and creativity of the natural world despite the personal and collective traumas that mark many of us.
Included in Elementary variations, his most recent exhibition at the Malin Gallery, are two of Satterfield’s Woodfox paintings, “Woodfox No. 3” and “Woodfox No. 4” (both from 2016). Visually, nothing is particularly different about these paintings compared to others with less loaded titles, like “Epic No. 1” (2018) and “Flow” (2022). In fact, Satterfield considered not naming them after Woodfox at all, preferring to keep his titles fairly vague so that viewers could have the widest possible range of subjective experiences with his art. He eventually changed his mind, he said, because Woodfox “is where the paint comes from; I was thinking of him while I was doing the work.
Formally, the paintings range from the incredibly loose “What Matters No. 2” (2020), which almost looks like a brightly colored cloud or sky cut in the canopy of a forest, to others that feel tied to a specific time and place, like “Epic Jewel Lake” (2017). Satterfield composed them through an accumulation of strongly gestural brushstrokes using a combination of techniques, particularly alla prima and plein air painting. The artist hesitates to delimit his approach and instead sticks to the idea that each individual painting requires its own set of practices. Although he cares deeply about social justice movements, especially the fight against systemic racism and climate change, he remains true to his desire for viewers to have their own experiences with the work, hoping the paintings will inspire people to ask themselves bigger political and philosophical questions and to take that curiosity out into the world.
During our conversation, we discussed the question of how to keep hope in the face of oppression. Satterfield reflected on his own past and how he came through the Jim Crow South and his compulsory service during the Vietnam War. “At the end of the day,” he says, “what kept me going was that I always had a vision…that and choices—choices and desires create the world.” Throughout the exhibition, I can’t help but think of Satterfield’s choices – to create paintings in the face of pain and to meditate on the stillness of nature as the surrounding world is unleashed with violence. Perhaps most poignant is his decision to envision an exhibition and a world in which the name “Woodfox” refers not only to the terrors of systemic racism, but also to the beauty of art and the possibility of being released.
Foad Satterfield: Elementary Variations continues at the Malin Gallery (520 East Durant Avenue, Aspen, Colorado) through May 27. The exhibition was organized by the gallery.
