Rashaun Rucker: Up From the Red Clay

Essay by Juana Williams, writer and visual arts curator, 2021

Up From the Red Clay​ centers on ideas of family, legacy, history, memory, and the power of oral tradition. Rashaun Rucker brings forth over twenty new figurative works of art that delve deeply into his personal life, offering a glimpse into Blackness. Influenced by the work of Charles White, Margaret Boroughs, Hale Woodruff, Elizabeth Catlett, Käthe Kollwitz, and Whitfield Lovell, among others, Rucker’s work presents powerful images of his family. Through monotypes, drawings, linocut prints, and mixed media pieces, Rucker portrays scenes of a very personal narrative, traveling from North Carolina through the Great Migration to the North and back again.

The use of red in the works parallels the connotation of the red clay mentioned in the title of the series, yet it also offers a valuable aesthetic element. Within works such as, “I Know It Was the Blood,” the use of negative space creates a respite from the intricate textures of the figure and the body of water, relieving the viewer to imagine what is beyond the horizon, figuratively and literally. Similarly, the only two drawings in the series, large-scale colored pencil works, further highlight the importance of offering a nuanced understanding of the color red. An image of Rucker’s great grandparents in a seated position, peering out to the viewer, with stoic faces depicts the eldest generation in the series through “Before the Throne.” The literal connection to Rucker is brought forth through the large-scale drawing, “The Weight of It All,” which is an image of the artist himself as an infant. The work is similarly drawn with red colored pencil and bridges the gap between past and future generations of his family.

The countless hours Rucker spent in church during his childhood bleed through the series in images such as, “The Ghost at New Bethel.” In the print, a lone arm, covered in a denim jacket and beaded bracelets juts out from the left corner of the image, leading the eye to a handheld church fan, which features the image of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Perhaps this is iconography specifically relevant to Black church-going communities. Handheld fans similar to the one depicted were often utilized in Black churches, particularly southern Black churches, to offer solace from severe temperatures within the church. They were also used as devotional props during praise and worship, spaces for advertisement of local Black businesses, and ways in which the church stayed connected to social movements and cultural events. The title of the work offers further context. The ghost the work refers to is that of the Holy Ghost, a spirit believed to be capable of embodying a person, causing many physical gestures, such as the raising and waving of hands. Although the image does not offer a full figure or details regarding the setting, the work can be understood through offered elements.

The series includes a number of monotypes with much more relaxed figuration, all completed with red ink. While many of the other works focus on Rucker’s paternal family, the majority of the monotypes focus more intimately on his maternal family members and bring forth imagery of the next generation, Rucker’s sons. His familial bloodline is continued through his sons, constructing his own examination of how he will continue the family legacy. His relationship with his oldest son is explored through “Forever.” A father kisses his young child as he looks away. A circular positioning of the figures illustrates a loving gesture and hints at the forever love of fatherhood.

From monotypes representing himself during his kindergarten graduation, to carvings exploring many branches of his family tree, Rucker, with ​Up From the Red Clay​, masterfully narrates his own story and the story of so many Black Americans. Although Rucker’s work is very specific to his family, even titling many pieces after individuals, what he captures is an authentic Black American story. Familiar characters include the cool uncles, the grandparents with infinite wisdom and willingness to share, family members returning from war, potentially forever changed, young parents with their child, figuring out their place in the world, and so many more, all with the foundational theme of the importance of religion in the Black community. The series explores what has come, what is, and the hereafter; time simultaneously folding in on itself, while building a trajectory to the future. Blackness, while not a monolith, exists through oral tradition, through stories brought forth from parents to children, grandparents to grandchildren, and through iconography and imagery. ​Up From the Red Clay​ tells the story of one Black family from the American South, and countless others who’ve shared a legacy of what’s important and what isn’t, a narrative of Blackness that’s personal and intricate, but also accessible and relatable.

From the red clay of North Carolina, Black stories have been birthed and woven through time and distance, through tragedy and triumph, through whispers and yells, through church pews, train cars, death, and through birth again.​ ​Up From the Red Clay​ is a conversation between Rucker’s past self and future self, his family who has lived and passed on, his family thousands of miles away, his sons, and future generations. He has taken stories from his childhood memories and conversations from his elders, interpreted them, and made manifest visual depictions that pay homage to those he holds dearly creating concrete visual memories that will last forever.