Wit López

Red Yellow Green Purple (2021) is a multimedia installation created originally to be displayed as part of The Baroness Elsa Project at the Carleton University Art Gallery (Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) and the Owens Art Gallery (Mt. Allison University, Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada). It features five disabled and chronically ill artists (including me) who are based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. The installation consists of seven digital quilt portraits. Each of the four invited collaborators (Ivan Felder III, Briana Hickman, Kenwyn Samuel, and Curtis Walker) submitted selfies that I then turned into these digital quilt portraits. After making each portrait, I sent them to each artist for approval/consent before adding them to the installation slideshow. The images of us are projected onto an 11’ x 11’/3.35m x 3.35m cotton quilt that I sewed by machine. The yarn objects used as part of the designs in these images are also part of the in-person installation and are displayed on the floor in front of the large quilt as if they fell out of the images.

As a disabled and chronically ill artist, it was important for me to feature other disabled and chronically ill artists with a variety of disabilities and illnesses because I know personally how it feels to be excluded from art spaces due to ableism and I didn’t want to exclude others. I made the quilt large because these artists, and all disabled and chronically ill artists, deserve to be presented as their true selves in larger than life ways. Since the installation would be travelling with The Baroness Elsa Project between Canadian provinces during COVID-19 travel restrictions, the Red Yellow Green Purple installation was also a way to share the names, faces, personalities, and work of disabled and chronically ill artists who were not able to travel due to the pandemic. Additionally, in keeping with my desire to always share with other marginalized artists, this project was a way for me to share space in an exhibition in another country with artists who had never displayed their work internationally.