Artist Stephen Towns recovers the African American past, captured in snippets of overheard conversations or family treasures that show their age and wear, to assemble quilts and render stories in paint. Digging through local archives, Towns finds photographs of everyday people going about their lives, whether getting pampered in a makeshift beauty parlor or enjoying the Florida sunshine. He transports his figures to a world of vivid color and texture. In Towns’ artwork, these fleeting glimpses of the past allow the viewer to imagine the possibilities of lives lived to the fullest, and communities who create their own spaces to be their freest selves.
In Private Paradise: A Figurative Exploration of Black Rest and Recreation, Towns celebrates the joy an African American community found in a created space: Paradise Park in Ocala, Florida. Though separated from the whites-only park that shared the same river due to racial prejudice, the people who flocked to Paradise Park carved out their own space to rest, to celebrate, and to be themselves. Shown together for the first time, Towns’ paintings and quilts amplify the images that remain of the park and gives the artist a platform to imagine what everyone’s lives could be like if they were truly welcome in the world.
