Irene Antonia Diane Reece
Born and raised in Houston, Texas, lives and works between the United States and Europe.
Irene Antonia Diane Reece graduated with her B.F.A (2018) in Photography and Digital Media at the University of Houston and currently an M.F.A (2020) candidate at Paris College of Art in Photography and Image-making. She exhibited a solo exhibition in 2017 at Lawndale Art Center in Houston, TX; in collective 2018 at Le Bateau-Lavoir in Paris France. She’s currently exhibiting work for a collective exhibition in 2019-2020 in Paris, Barcelona, Utrecht, Venice, and San Antonio, Texas. Her series Billie-James will be exhibited at the 5th Biennale Internationale de Casablanca in 2020.
Her array of photographic works, appropriated films, usage of text, and found objects create an insight towards issues that revolve around racial identity, African diaspora, social injustice, family histories, mental and community health issues. She identifies as a contemporary artist and visual activist. Her recent work questions society’s perspectives on her racial identities and combats the social norms in regards to being a Black Mexican woman living in the United States and Europe. Her work pushes boundaries and forces her viewers to confront issues that are deemed difficult to tackle.
Emblematic of Black Souls
Emblematic of Black Souls was created to pay homage to Black Southern churches. The body of work stems from a larger series entitled Home-goings. Its intent was to create forms of Black liberation theology, celebrating Black bodies, and confront issues of racial inequalities in the United States. I have grown up in Houston, Texas all of my life, and keep that essence of being from the South in my work. I had grown up with a mixture of different dominations. It was either Protestant (Methodist) or Catholic worship because of my parents being from different domination of Christianity. As I grew older my parents asked me which church I preferred and I chose to continue at the United Methodist churches.
Growing up in the South there were always “photographic” fans in every pew right next to a bible. On the front of the fan, images ranged from Harriet Tubman, Fredrick Douglas, Martin Luther King Jr., Obama, Black families, and Black children to showcase an array of positive imagery. Having elements that embodied Black southern churches gave me forms of comfort during reoccurring times of violence towards Black bodies. The music sat differently with me.
I did feel spiritually more connected to my father’s Black church than the Spanish mass I would go to with my mother. As a child when I would go to the Black churches all the old women (the aunties) would take turns passing me and my siblings around. They would hold you, hum to you, give you butterscotch candy, and play with your hair or shoes. I’ve always had a warming memory of the Black church. Emblematic, meaning symbolic or symbolism; the fans are that symbol of the Black Southern church. This series felt like a continuation of the message to create a various array of liberating Black imagery or bring old positive imagery back into circulation. On the back of the fans was either advertisement for the funeral home that was in the area or a scripture/poem. The fans vary from confronting issues of perception of Black bodies, other calling out racism, and paying homage to my family heritage. All my work stems from this notion that Black bodies’ history and culture are not linear. We are multifaceted full of deep rich history and all of it is needing to be uncovered.