Ekua Harris holding photo
Collage artist Ekua Holmes lovingly holds a large, framed black & white portrait she took of her grandfather Commodo Hendricks, at the DDFR road show in Boston, MA. “I see love and compassion in his face,” she remarks to Thomas while describing one of several pictures from both Hendricks’ and her own personal collection against a velvety black cloth background. The colors on some of them may have faded over time, but Ekua’s memories seem as vivid as ever. Her favorite photo is one of her sitting on her late father’s lap. The desk behind them is where her grandmother allowed her to create collages and images while babysitting her.
Ekua considers photography a way of gently holding on to the memory of a person, including ones she never experienced. With a smile, she displays a photo of her mother wearing a robe on her honeymoon. The discovery of this image and the moment it captured; led her to create the mixed media piece “Remember Me.” The piece serves as an example of how Ekua tries to interact with images by participating in them, as opposed to simply manipulating them.
Thomas marvels at how a tiny photo booth image that has Ekua enlarged, could hold so much information about a person. Though she doesn’t know any of the people in the snapshots, they enchant her. To her they are “representative of African-American life, character, personality, strength, and beauty”.
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