TINA DUNKLEY
The granddaughter of a well- known Jamaican artist, Tina Dunkley initially thought she wanted to be a dancer and studied with Black choreographer Katherine Dunham.
She moved to Atlanta in the 1970s to get her master’s degree at Atlanta University and discovered its collection of works by Black artists that Hale Woodruff had built. The art hadn’t been shown in about 10 years at the time, and after writing about it for her thesis, Dunkley asked if she could be its curator. Forty years of intense involvement in Atlanta’s art scene followed, during which time she elevated and grew Clark Atlanta’s collection, helped establish its museum, served as director of Georgia State’s museum and worked as artist in residence at numerous institutions. While researching her family history, Dunkley found out that her maternal ancestors had been enslaved in the colony of Virginia prior to their ar- rival in Trinidad. During the War of 1812, the Brit- ish Royal Navy began to recruit African freedmen and fugitive slaves from the coastline stretching from the Chesapeake Bay to Georgia to fight volun- tarily against American colonists, many of whom were their former enslavers. The British decreed in 1814 that refugee slaves would be rewarded with freedom and the ability to resettle in British colo- nies such as Nova Scotia or the island of Trinidad. Black colonial marines (termed “merikins”) each also received 16 acres of land in the southern por- tion of Trinidad at the war’s conclusion, in 1815.
After researching records at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., the National Archives of London, the University of Virginia and the Univer- sity of Trinidad, Dunkley created a series of images based on this history, including this recent acqui- sition. “Lunar Eclipse of 1815: For Sergeant Ezekiel Loney #44, Fourth Company, Royal British Navy” references one of her more prominent ancestors, who served as a British colonial marine. In the absence of photography, Dunkley wondered what he and others like him may have looked like. She chose the early photographic medium of cyano- type, invented by Sir John Herschel in 1842, which produces a blue and white image through the use of ferrous (iron) salts. Dunkley draws in imagery of the sails and broadsides from the ships that her ancestors may have manned. She silkscreens the names of men, women and children on the ship in the background.
Tina Dunkley (American, b. 1951), “Lunar Eclipse of 1815: For Sergeant Ezekiel Loney #44, Fourth Company, Royal British Navy,” 2016. Cyanotype, silkscreen and watercolor on paper, 36 × 22 inches. Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia; William Underwood Eiland Endowment for Acquisitions made possible by M. Smith Griffith. GMOA 2019.465.
Shawnya L. Harris Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson Curator of African American and African Diasporic Art
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