William Villalongo

Higher Ground is the title of a song on Stevie Wonder's 1973 album, Innervisions. The song is a call for hope and resilience in the face of systemic oppression, which has continued to plague Black life and Black communities in the post-Civil Rights era. Villalongo's work is inspired by the media coverage of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, in 2005, and the repetitive images of Black suffering and disenfranchisement in New Orleans that would persist years after the hurricane. The painting recalls imagery of the Biblical deluge, as well as other more specific works depicting tragic human indifference, such as The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault. Villalongo's figures are captured in difficult currents on the brink of living and non-living.