The Negro Poet (Phillis Wheatley)

By Stephen Abban Junior

A short-term memory loss ushered his illustrations on his mother’s bedroom walls during his early childhood. Those illustrations were his means of keeping his memories and helping him recall his thoughts, morals, and values passed on by his parents. Episodic memories are some of the capturing subjects Abban portrays in his oeuvre, he synchronizes the process of aging and history. As human advances, there are possibilities of keeping blindfolds on their history and going through life without it. As humanity advances so do we advance with nature and its history. This has resulted in bridging the gap between nature and its history by linking natural elements; soil, human figures, fber (burlap Fabric), and water and blending them with an inorganic element “Acrylic” creating a visual and psychological sensation of antiqueness on the viewer’s mind. The formalism of Stephen Abban Junior's oeuvre is comprised largely of figurative representations in which the feminine figure dominates, thereby allotting Fluidity, unclenching, and amnesty in his journey through his executions. Abban uses the human body (depicted in varied postures and spaces) metaphorically, as a way to address the pertinent historical narratives that are reticent in contemporary history.