From humble beginnings as a younger collector in search of Black artwork in flea markets to founding a groundbreaking multi-media platform, Patricia Andrews-Keenan’s journey embodies the facility of purposeful storytelling. Because the founding father of Pigment Worldwide®, she has reworked her ardour for Black artwork right into a motion that celebrates, paperwork, and elevates Black artists’ voices throughout generations. With a profession spanning journalism, company communications, and now artwork advocacy, Andrews-Keenan’s imaginative and prescient has created an unprecedented platform for Black inventive expression.
What impressed you to ascertain Pigment Worldwide?
Pigment Worldwide was form of a end result of all the talents, the abilities, the lived expertise that I had up till that point. I got here up as a journalism main, traditionally Black Faculty and College, Gramlin State College. I ended up with a company profession. I used to be a regional vice chairman of company communications and advertising within the telecom business. I labored for Comcast for a few years, my very own PR agency, the place I truly had purchasers and was uncovered to lots of artists, however I’d all the time been a collector. I all the time purchased for what I might afford on the time, after I was younger I might go to flea markets, I might purchase these totally different items that have been cheap, and as I used to be in a position to, I elevated that, after which I started to fulfill black artists, and I assumed that they had tales to inform, and all of my experiences, writing, doing annual experiences within the company world, doing newsletters, it was what allowed my avocation and my vocation to fulfill.
How has your perspective on amassing and preserving black arts and artifacts modified over the a long time?
It was all the time about bringing these pictures and having these pictures round me due to the way in which they make me really feel. You need to see your self within the artwork in your wall, and irrespective of if it’s a poster, or no matter it’s, you realize you need that, and the change within the journey got here as I form of honed in on issues that I beloved. I like to have ladies in my paintings, and lots of my paintings may have ladies in it, or ladies and women, as a result of once more, I’m reflecting to know who I’m.
I’ve realized extra about artwork, the opposite factor that I’m now making an attempt to soak up is summary artwork. It was all the time about figurative artwork for me, and I actually take pleasure in figurative artwork, as a result of once more, it’s reflecting who I’m, however now I need to know the artist and perceive what these issues imply? And so I’m studying about summary artwork. I really like modern artwork, however I additionally love historic artists, so I feel, as an individual grows their style change, they evolve, and so they adapt new issues.
Do you’ve gotten a favourite artist at this second?
What I began doing this yr, I began placing some notes on artists that I wished to look at. There are a pair that I’ve written for the primary of the yr, and my massive look this yr is especially at ladies artists. At Pigment, what we’re speaking about for this yr, and I don’t name it a theme, I don’t name it simply one thing that’s form of corporately checked out. I name it our North Star. What’s main us, and what are we doing, and what are we following? And our North star is Artwork, Activism and Empowering Black ladies. These are the issues that we’ve adopted, that Pigment will push out in all of it’s programming this yr. So notably, black ladies artists, a few of them are historic and a few of them are modern.
Andra Daans, who lives in Paris and is represented by Blackbird Gallery, is performing some lovely work within the journal this yr. There’s an African artist, Sesse Elangwe, that I’m , and one other artist named Esteban Whitehead, that’s doing attention-grabbing issues. Sesse is represented by Watercolors Gallery in Memphis, Tennessee, and I simply noticed his work, there’s lots of thrilling issues.
How do you strategy storytelling of Black ladies in a different way from conventional arts publications?
First off, I’m a black girl, so I’m in search of these position fashions, I’m in search of these examples, I’m in search of these mentors, and after I take into consideration who I’m, I’m from Louisiana. I’m born and raised in Louisiana. However the issues I’ve realized about artwork I realized right here in Chicago.
So I’m a melding of these two issues, and Dr. Margaret Burroughs was a Louisiana born and Chicago bred, and I have a look at her. After I look traditionally, I have a look at her as I’m making an attempt to proceed the legacy that she began, and she or he was very a lot about legacy.
I truly hold a quote of hers that she wrote in a bit guide about, what is going to your legacy be? And in fascinated about pigment it was a part of that, and I hope that different younger folks will come alongside and need to be part of us and say, How can I perpetuate this legacy? Samella Lewis, who was a outstanding artist who handed away, each Dr. Burroughs and Samella Lewis handed away properly, into their nineties, and and I feel artwork most likely has one thing to do with conserving you important and contributing, and so these are the position fashions I have a look at.
How do you see Pigment Worldwide constructing upon and increasing that legacy in right now’s digital world?
I got here out of the cable tv business, and it was then after I got here in, very like what we’re seeing with Silicon Valley again then. I’ve all the time had an affinity for expertise. I take into account myself an early adapter, and I’ve continued to discover ways to do these items, I’m a senior citizen, however I really like this expertise.
So after I constructed this platform, it had layers, we’ve a publication that we do each week, and we ship out 50 weeks a yr, and it has artwork information, it’s aggregated content material, it’s authentic content material, it’s profiles, it’s speaking to this ecosystem. We speak to gallery homeowners, we speak to curators, we speak to museums, after which we give that info again in our publication. This week, as an illustration, we talked to a gallery in Bowie, Maryland, a black owned gallery, and so they gave us their projections for 2025.
How does Pigment Worldwide construct upon inventive legacy in right now’s digital world?
I got here out of the cable tv business, and it was then after I got here in, very like what we’re seeing with Silicon Valley again then, so I’ve all the time had an affinity for expertise. I take into account myself an early adapter, and I’ve continued to discover ways to do these items, and I’m a senior citizen., however I really like this expertise.
After I constructed this platform, it had layers, we’ve a publication that we do each week, and we ship out 50 weeks a yr, and it has artwork information, it’s aggregated content material, it’s authentic content material. it’s profiles. it’s speaking to this ecosystem.
How does Pigment Worldwide interact with the broader artwork neighborhood?
We work with college students. We work with the Gary Comer Youth Heart in our South Shore neighborhood, and we carry the children in to fulfill artists and to get mentored by artists. We work with different artwork neighborhood teams in order that we study, we’re partnering, and we’re supporting what they do via our publication.
I take advantage of AI restricted, I’m form of feeling my manner via that. There’s a black owned AI web site it’s known as Lattimore, we’re how can they improve what we do? There’s only some of us and the people who volunteer. So we actually have to make use of the expertise in a manner that enables us to develop the platform and attain extra folks.
What have you ever realized in regards to the significance of neighborhood artwork areas in nurturing black artists?
I might not be doing what I’m doing if it weren’t for the Southside Neighborhood Arts Heart, I sat on the board, the place I first got here to do some PR work for them. Diane Carr reached out to me, it was an anniversary yr for the middle, and so they did this lovely occasion, a ballet occasion with an artist, Jonathan Inexperienced, who had come via the Artwork Institute.
The connection that the middle has with the broader neighborhood is superb, as a result of again within the day when black artists have been coming into the Artwork Institute, one of many early locations that they might come, these black artists would come to the south facet of Chicago and likewise create neighborhood on the Southside Neighborhood Artwork Heart, and people who couldn’t go to the artwork middle might study what they have been studying, so it’s all the time been so communal.
Are you able to share any specific significant story out of your early amassing days?
I went to my first present. Some associates of ours obtained a job hauling issues into an vintage present, you realize. Simply day labor. Are available in, pack, unpack these things, and so we obtained tickets to go, and I’d by no means been to at least one, and I used to be in my twenties and I’d by no means been. So we obtained these tickets, and I simply couldn’t consider this. You already know all these items, and most of them, we’re speaking pre-owned issues. I consider issues have a historical past. They’ve a really feel, they impart one thing. I really like proudly owning one thing outdated, and beloved simply as a lot as I take pleasure in having one thing model new.