BIO
Erin Kendrick is a versatile visual artist, designer, and arts educator based in Jacksonville, Florida. She holds a BFA in Studio Art from Florida State University (1999) and an MFA in Drawing and Painting from Georgia State University (2003). Erin worked as a studio artist and arts educator in Atlanta before establishing E. Street Design Co., a creative firm specializing in graphic and event design (2009-2018).
Currently, Erin serves as the Director of Education and Lead Visual Art Instructor at Jacksonville Arts & Music School, as well as an adjunct professor at Flagler College's School of Creative Arts & Letters. She also runs Artist Types, an initiative that provides workshops and resources to help emerging artists advance their careers.
Erin's dedication to teaching and contributions to the arts have earned her numerous accolades, including the 2019 Art Educator of the Year award from the Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville and Best Artist, Best Art Exhibition, and Best Art Educator recognition from Folio Weekly. She was also named Folio's Best Artist in 2022. Erin has received grants, residencies, and fellowships from esteemed institutions like TILA Studios (2023 Garden Fellowship), Moving the Margins Art Residency, Crisp-Ellert Museum of Art Residency, Jackie Cornelius Teaching Residency at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, and Community First Foundation Art Ventures grant.
In her teaching and personal artistic practice Erin continually seeks to embody Elbert Hubbard's quote, "Art is not a thing. It is a way,"
ARTIST STATEMENT
To shelter-in-place is to seek safety amidst imminent danger. This idea resonates with the experiences of African American women and girls: because we navigate marginalized and mainstream spaces, facing inherent danger (whether real or imagined). Through a system of adapted visual and verbal cues, we forge our own codified language, defining cultural nuances that create safe spaces, foster inclusion, and offer refuge. These expressions enable us to adapt, pivot, and thrive. Through Pikin., my body of work on black girlhood, I explore the question: When does blackness become a threat and how do we teach our girls to survive?
Each character in my color-rich, fluid, acrylic portraits, and transformative installations embodies the lived experiences of black women and girls. The portrait, Little Dragon., represents the assertive student who must temper her frustration, highlighting the issues of adultification and disproportionate discipline rates affecting girls of color. Tay., another character, wears red polka dot pajamas as a tribute to Breonna Taylor and reflects on police violence. As my collection evolves, more girls will join, growing older and finding safety and refuge in one another.
I create spaces where the characters can watch over one another. An integration of installation and painting invites the viewer to reflect on their role as both spectator and spectacle. Blurring the boundaries between artwork, viewer, and space, lets me foster connection and provoke introspection. I am inspired by artists like Barkley Hendricks, Faith Ringgold, Simone Leigh, and Ebony G. Patterson, as I too invoke the transformative power of looking and seeing, engaging the viewer in the oppositional gaze.
In essence, my work delves into the resilience and strength of black womanhood through the lens of black girlhood. Through evocative visuals and immersive installations, I invite viewers to join the conversation and confront their own perspectives within the narrative.
CURRICULUM VITAE
EDUCATION
2003
MFA, Drawing & Painting, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA
1999
BFA, Studio Art, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2022
SHELTER-IN-PLACE, The Corner Gallery at The Jessie, Jacksonville, FL
2021
The Things We Bring, Annette Howell Turner Center for the Arts, Valdosta, GA
Pikin, South Gallery at Florida State College at Jacksonville, Jacksonville, FL
2020
Echo, Hendricks Avenue Baptist Church, Jacksonville, FL
2019
The Wiz, Players-by-the-Sea, Jacksonville, FL
Oh Snap!, Riverside Fine Arts Association, Jacksonville, FL
2018
Photobooth, Heather Moore Community Gallery, Cathedral Arts Project, Jacksonville, FL
her own things - an exhibition by erin kendrick, Yellow House, Jacksonville, FL
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2022
The Color of Law - The Impact of Redlining in Communities of Color, Historic Eastside Cultural Center, Jacksonville, FL
Screams Echo: The Legacy of Lynching, Yellow House, Jacksonville, FL
Black Creativity 2022, Museum of Science & Industry, Chicago, IL
2021
The Artists Answered the Call, Ritz Theater & Museum, Jacksonville, FL
Mirror in the Dark, Visionary Art Collective (digital exhibition), Juana Williams, Curator
Variance, I Like Your Work Podcast (digital exhibition), Jamaal Barber, Curator (catalog)
The Fact of Blackness, Dominique Gallery via Artsy.com (digital exhibition), Curator, Jasmine McNeal
30th Anniversary of Art Ventures Exhibition, Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, Jacksonville, FL
2020
The Nameless Now, Crisp-Ellert Art Museum, St. Augustine, FL
ArtWork(ers) United, University of North Florida, Jacksonville, FL
Paint: Medium as Power, Barrett Art Center, Poughkeepsie, NY
W.A.V.E.- Women Artists. Visual Experiences, Jacksonville International Airport, Jacksonville, FL
As a Matter of Black, Miami Urban Contemporary Experience (MUCE), Miami, FL
2019
Through Our Eyes: Struggle and Resistance - Journey to South Africa, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Museum, Port Elizabeth, South Africa
Through Our Eyes 2019: The Revolution will be Documented by the Artists, Ritz Museum & Theater, Jacksonville, FL
Welcome to the Afrofuture: Ground Zero, New Orleans African American Museum, New Orleans, LA
Musing Women, FSCJ South Gallery, Wilson Center for the Arts, Jacksonville, FL
Enroute, Bethune Cookman College Performing Arts Center, Daytona, FL
Contemporary Portrait: A National Juried Exhibition, Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts, Lubbock, TX
2018
SUFFRAGE, Yellow House, Jacksonville, FL
Stories/Allegories, Jacksonville International Airport, Jacksonville, FL
Through Our Eyes 2018: Struggle & Resistance, Ritz Theater and Museum, Jacksonville, FL
First Coast Artists on the First Amendment, Karpeles Manuscript Museum, Jacksonville, FL
2017
Kesha - A Black Female Experience of Identity and Race, Jax Makerspace, Jacksonville Public Library, Jacksonville, FL
2016
Through Our Eyes 2016: Sensory Perception, Ritz Theatre and Museum, Jacksonville, FL
PIKIN. ARTIST STATEMENT
In spite of the relentless adultification of young black girls, they are children first. To experience adolescence authentically without the intrusion of racial bias and spiritual, emotional, and physical violence is their absolute right. However, the idea that black girls are small black women is highlighted in various capacities in the US - disproportionate discipline rates for black girls in schools for subjective infractions, expectations of keeping family secrets in spite of sexual, emotional, and physical trauma, resistance to non-traditional gender identities, a lack of empathy in cases of black missing and endangered girls, incessant, unwarranted police violence, as well as the age-old myth of the black superwoman.
Solutions to these disparities have been proffered in the form of fortified assimilation, complacent longsuffering, and apathetic disregard, but the emergence of what has been termed, Black Girl Magic, has presented itself as an effective solution. The term highlights a renaissance of black women and girls, reclaiming agency, and stepping from the margins to the center in the last 10 years. By centering the authentic lived experiences and the voices of black women and girls—as both salve and resolve to these disparities—we grant our black girls a fighting chance.
On Pikin.
This exhibition was inspired in part by the memoir “Taking Flight” by ballerina, Michaela DePrince,
as part of the 2020-21 FSCJ Author Series.
Michaela DePrince's origin story is one of loss, disposal, and redemption, and personal absolution. Each the residue of the power of choice. Born Mabinty Bangura in Sierra Leone, as a child Michaela DePrince endured the tragic loss of her parents and abandonment by an uncle who considered her too ugly and too smart for his time. Often referred to as “pikin” meaning child, she was sold to an orphanage whose caretakers substituted punishment and shame for love. With the hope of being adopted into an American family, she persevered and found strength in standing up for her orphanage bestowed best friend, Mabinty Suma. Each considered outcasts among the children, young Michaela's imagination and fortitude would win them both friends and eventually legal sisterhood by adoption. DePrince survived all of this before the age of five. Her story, like so many black girls, is one of resilience, and she has tendered her lived history as a beacon for girls like her.
“Pikin” is for the Mabintys of the world. Fire-breathing dragons. Standing up for one another time and time again