Artist: Rawn McCloud Title: Transcription of Made-up Fable Year: 2008 Dimensions: 20 1/2in. by 13in. Medium: Acrylic on rag paper Condition: Excellent Signature Details: Signed in pencil lower right. Titled and dated, verso Other Details: unframed ARTIST BIO: Rawn McCloud is a native of California who currently resides in Oakland. He graduated with a degree in Fine Art from California State University. McCloud has exhibited in a number of group and solo exhibitions including the Nexus Contemporary Art Center in Atlanta which was positively reviewed by the Atlanta Journal Constitution. In this series of work, the Rice and Indigo Series, the artist searches for an understanding of a cultural past and enduring cultural legacy involving the people, the land, and the fascinating political history of the South Carolina and Georgia Sea Islands. He follows in the tradition of Eldzier Cortor, and other African American artists who traveled to the Sea Islands for creative inspiration, and he shares the fascination of anthropologists and folklorists who have studied the unique cultural heritage of the Gullah-Geechee people who call the Sea Islands home. McClouds point of departure is the particular form of agrarian economy that developed in the low country of South Carolina. Rice, which was introduced around 1680, and later indigo, the crop from which indigo dye is made, were imported from West Africa and flourished in the marshy tidewater area, fueling the impressive economic rise of the low country economy and making its inhabitants among the wealthiest in North America. The extraordinary performance of the low country economy, however, was inextricably bound to African slavery. McCloud carefully avoids a realist tendency to document the people and culture, though he is quite capable of working in a narrative vernacular. His studies shine a spotlight on how elements survive, thrive and influence other cultures in the new world. He does this through the visual metaphors of rice, indigo and cotton and deftly guides his progression from the contemplation of the agrarian roots to other aspects of African survivals or African retention, which include language patterns and even the metalwork in the graveyard decoration.