William Villalongo

Speak No Evil is an excellent example of Villalongo's signature cut velour paper. An image resolves from a filigree of twigs and branches, a young man in a hoodie with hands raised, both symbols of Black resistance to systemic violence against the Black body. An American eagle, traditional symbol of freedom and war, emerges from the nest of twigs and the subject's mouth. For the artist, art is a way to speak of the unspeakable through observation, feeling, metaphor, and material.

While a student a Cooper Union the artist came across the paper at the now defunct New York Central. The upper story housed one of the great suppliers of handmade and specialty papers supplying artists, printers and craftsmen from Manhattan to the Outer Boroughs. The material reminded the artist of the first art he saw in his childhood home and the homes of his mother’s friends. Velvet paintings and posters featuring soul sisters with afros, Black love, civil rights leaders, or Black Jesus were part of an Afrocentric kitsch that offered a more personal connection for himself and a world of aesthetics that rarely saw the light of day in art school. The rich, black, velvety surface offered spatial and poetic connotations for exploring Black subjectivity.