Kaleigh Blevins asks us to reconsider what it means to ‘act natural’ in M Contemporary Art show
The recent Wayne State University graduate is already asserting herself as an introspective artist with a promising future
By Randiah Camille Green on Fri, Aug 4, 2023 for the Detroit Metro Times
Photo: CJ Bennninger
There’s something curious about Kaleigh Blevins’s paintings. In some pieces, the background is partially obscured as if it captured the moment before the subject is sucked into an encroaching black hole. In the moment of what looks like impending doom, the subjects seem almost emotionless as they stare intently back at the viewer.
“The mostly blackness of the space is because if a viewer has less information then they have less power,” Blevins tells Metro Times. “Some of these figures have been interrupted in what they were doing so their gaze is a little bit more confrontational… so you aren’t able to consume the figure in the same way.”
It feels like an act of defiance — as if the paintings are challenging us, asking why we are staring at them like we don’t have business of our own to mind. We who gaze upon these paintings are invading their personal space, and they don’t like it.
“They are feeling vulnerable that they must perform for an invisible viewer,” the young artist says. “It’s important for these figures to feel autonomous. They are technically just flat on a 2D surface, but I’m very conscious of the way that I want to contribute to Black representation, autonomy, and this kind of almost painful self-awareness to know that some kind of invisible viewer exists.”
In some of Blevins's pieces, the background is obscured as if it captured the moment before the subject is sucked into a black hole.
Blevins is an emerging artist who graduated from Wayne State University in December 2022 with a Bachelor of Arts in painting. She’s featured in M Contemporary Art’s Act Natural exhibit alongside another young Detroit painter, Cailyn Dawson.
Though she’s fresh out of college, the young artist gives humanity to her subjects in a way that many more experienced painters do not. Her awareness of the performative nature of existence bleeds through her paintings into real life.
Blevins says she was inspired by contemporary Black painters Jennifer Packer and Mickalene Thomas who are intentional about controlling the viewer’s gaze.
“As you look at the figures, they see you looking at them,” she says. “It’s kind of asking the viewer to see their humanity and to see their wholeness… I want to add to the conversation of reclaiming Black subjectivity.”
The figures in Blevins's work are aware of the viewer looking at them and stare back in a challenge.
There is also an air of loneliness that hangs in Blevins’s work. She paints her friends, and herself, in acts of deep introspection in scenes that are relatively barren even if the subject is in their own home, where they should be most comfortable and secure. It is a bit difficult for the viewer to read the subjects and it can feel slightly unsettling.
In a self-portrait, Blevins paints herself leaning on a kitchen counter with a sketchbook and coffee cup at her side. Instead of warm and inviting, it feels cold.
“The invisible audience, I feel that all the time,” she says. “Because I’m always thinking about what exactly is supposed to be normal and the idea of feeling wrong sometimes in just being. What does it mean to be right or to act normally as a human being, then as a Black person, and then as a person in a specific area?”
Maybe the subjects, Blevins included, are having an existential crisis.
She elaborates that as an artist who is on the spectrum, she often feels at odds with what it means to be a “normal” human being. What does it mean to act natural?
“There’s this idea of the uncanny valley when you are around people and they feel like there’s something off about you,” she says. “It’s weird because you are a person and you operate normally in some sense, like the way a person should, but then there’s the larger human culture. I’m influenced by the idea of pattern recognition and my deep interest in human behavior. What does this type of person really think or do or feel when they go home?”
As a young woman who graduated from Cass Technical High School, Belvins says she felt pressure to be “successful” in terms of career, which doesn't necessarily match her goals.
“Being a pretty young artist, there is a lot of pressure on you and then being Black, there’s a lot of pressure on you in general with this idea of, if you are good enough and you can represent a model minority, then you can succeed,” she says. “But that idea of success is pretty narrow. It’s based on capital and how you can be used as a symbol of progress. I’m more interested in the idea of success being something you can achieve by being happy or having internal satisfaction.”
Where to see her work: Act Natural is on view through Aug. 12 at M Contemporary Art; 205 E. Nine Mile Rd., Ferndale; mcontemporaryart.com. Blevins also has work in the Detroit Artists Market’s annual Hot DAM! show on view from Aug. 4-Sept. 2. An opening reception is scheduled from 6-9 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 4; 4719 Woodward Ave., Detroit; detroitartistsmarket.org.
