Color ASL

11 × 14 inches
Oil on canvas
2012
SOLD

Description

Color ASL brings together the two primary De’VIA approaches of Affirmation and Resistance, creating a work that moves toward Liberation Art. The painting is inspired by Deaf ASL poet Debbie Rennie’s Black Hole: Color ASL, while also drawing conceptually from Paddy Ladd’s writing on Deafhood and the ongoing struggle to overcome Audism.

At the center of the composition, a red mountain symbolizes the growing strength of Deaf people as they confront and overcome Audism. The mountain suggests both resistance and collective empowerment—a visual representation of the continuing Deafhood journey.

The black holes, dots, and water represent forces associated with Audism and Oralism, including Listening and Spoken Language (LSL) approaches and the influence of Alexander Graham Bell. The black holes function as visual metaphors for systems that attempt to erase or diminish Deaf identity, Deaf culture, and the centrality of sign language.

A ladder extends through the composition as a metaphor for direction, movement, and a new path. It represents the individual’s journey toward Deafhood: a process of discovering Deaf identity, culture, language, and belonging.

At the top of the ladder stands a Deaf artist, actively spattering red, yellow, blue, white, and black paint into the sky. These colors represent the creative expression and vitality of Deaf experience. The paint falls downward into the water, where some of the black pigment forms additional black holes. The resulting visual relationship between color and darkness reflects the tension between Deaf cultural affirmation and the forces of Audism and Oralism.

The ladder itself is gradually being drawn toward the black hole. This creates a moment of uncertainty and asks the viewer to consider a deeper question: What happens to the Deaf artist? Is the Deafhood journey interrupted by systems that continue to suppress Deaf language and identity, or can the artist resist being pulled into the darkness?

There is also a hidden message embedded within the painting. Its discovery invites the viewer to look beyond the immediate imagery and engage more deeply with the work’s themes of Deaf identity, resistance, cultural survival, and liberation.

Color ASL therefore operates simultaneously as an affirmation of Deaf cultural identity and as a visual critique of the forces that have historically attempted to suppress it. The painting transforms color, movement, and symbolic imagery into a visual representation of the ongoing Deafhood journey.