A Light Under the Bushel: Paintings by Julia Bottoms

Paintings by Julia Bottoms.

Buffalo-based visual artist Julia Bottoms has utilized portraiture to express the nuance and complexities of Black identity beyond limiting, reductive stereotypes. A Light Under the Bushel features work from a new series inspired by the inclusion & or lack thereof & of Black and Brown bodies in classical portraiture. Black and Brown people certainly existed during times like the Renaissance and Victorian eras when classical portraits were created. The featured works emphasize how they have always been an important part of history. They fuse traditional portraiture and religious iconography, building upon the artist’s interest in expanding representations of blackness.