The New York Times described American artist Radcliffe Bailey’s shimmering, shape-shifting works as being fueled by an exploration of “Black Atlantic culture, the vital, nurturing, agitated link between Africa and the Americas.”

The McMaster Museum of Art was delighted to have Bailey’s Diamond enter the collection in 2012, a generous gift of David and Julie Moos, and is doubly pleased to present it in this summer’s exhibition Structure of the World.

In his art, Bailey harmonizes an intuitive balance of world history and family memory, and layers meaning by layering objects.

The overt subject of Diamond is baseball, embedded in the title, motifs and in images which were drawn from his family cache of photographs. Baseball has an important dimension in the Civil Rights movement—the first critical moment being the breaking of the “colour barrier” by Jackie Robinson, the first African American to play in the major leagues beginning in 1945.

The term “diamond” also may be a reference to “blood diamonds” — diamonds mined in Africa to finance war and in turn, the social-human impact.

Other, less overt aspects of the work are autobiographical. Bailey was scouted as high school baseball prospect by the major leagues. The number “25” refers to Bailey’s birthday, November 25, and “7” is ‘the perfect number.’ *

Diamond comes from a body of work that High Museum Curator Carol Thompson described as “containers for socially cathartic art, inspired by medicine cabinets — literally — where you go to find something to make you feel better. Lyrically and metaphorically [the works] reconnect the too-often disconnected histories of peoples of Africa and the African Diaspora, emphasizing collective experiences while recognizing the Black Atlantic world’s infinite diversity.”

To learn more about Radcliffe Bailey and his art, check out these videos:

Radcliffe Bailey – TEDxAtlanta

Radcliffe Bailey – interview at Jack Shainman Gallery, 2013

*from correspondence with Jack Shainman Gallery