Joan Tarika Lewis
Joan Tarika Lewis has often been described as a Renaissance woman. Visual Artist, Jazz Violinist, teacher, and genealogist Ms. Lewis graduated from Cal State East Bay and the Academy of Art in San Francisco. Her artwork focuses on African culture, musicians, and Black family life. Ms. Lewis also has also painted a collection of paintings based upon her experiences in the Black Panther Party for Self Defense.
This leads to a very important component in the process of my work. I like to invite family, community into my space, to create something unifying. In each exhibit, I have a piece or work either my family member created or had some hand in the making of that work. This inclusion is important, for the exhibition space is designed to separate the community apart from the individual whereas I try to gather parts of myself, my family my community into the work to not only celebrate the beauty I produced but how that production could not have existed without them. The implementation emerges as various assemblage pieces that show the constant battle of claiming the self. However, it doesn’t always turn into but can sometimes become a beautiful struggle.
