Room 360 of the Massachusetts State House — The Governor’s Reception — is lined with painted portraits of the Commonwealth’s leaders dating back decades.
But during the month of February, a mixed media portrait of a Haitian immigrant grandmother hung just as high as those of former Massachusetts Governors Charlie Baker, Deval Patrick, Bill Weld, Michael Dukakis and others.
In early February, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey and Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll hosted a celebration of Black History Month, which also marked the opening of a temporary art exhibition showcasing the work of “talented Black Artists who express the triumph, beauty and resilience of Black culture,” according to a press release.
On Tuesday, Feb. 25, Healey welcomed back artists Marlon Forrester, a Guyana-born and Boston-raised full-time artist and educator; Chanel Thervil, a Haitian American artist and educator; and Paul Goodnight, a Boston-based artist and veteran who travelled the world and pursued a career in art that put his work in movies, television as well as museums and galleries.
“Artists and creatives are so important … for so many reasons,” said Healey, highlighting artists’ ability to build community and connect with other people through art. “I think something that we really need right now is a connection with one another and the building of community.”
These three artists shed light on their artistic practice, inspirations and shared hard-won wisdom for emerging artists.
“To be in this great hall to showcase our work, it’s really an indication of what we’re building as a future,” said Forrester.
Artist and writer DaNice D. Marshall, who began to paint after a life-threatening illness in 2016, was also featured in the show, but could not attend the talk due to a speaking engagement in Washington D.C. with Massachusetts Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren.
Forrester’s two mixed media works displayed at the State House exhibition, “Rick23” and “Ross23,” explore one of the main themes in the artist’s work: The Black male body.
“You’re looking at portraits of black men who are really almost like Roman figures or Greek figures,” said Forrester, describing his work. “And they are beside some columns that you might see in [the State House]. If you think about the Doric or Corinthian columns juxtaposing them in this space.”
“In these works, you can see these figures that are collaged at black and white, and they represent migrants,” he said. “They represent African migrants that are moving from Africa to Europe.” He then asked: “What does that say about the Black male body? And what does it say about us as consumers of identity within the context of popular culture and social media?”
Forrester added that strong community, and a consistent studio space through Northeastern University’s African American Master Artists-in-Residency Program, has been invaluable to his artistic practice.
Thervil, a Brooklyn native who came to Boston to study at MassArt, said that her artistic journey started in childhood with a big 64-pack of Crayola crayons and color pencils. She explained that her grandmother, a Haitian immigrant, and her mother both encouraged her to make art.
“Painting is my first love,” said Thervil. “I often really enjoy the opportunity to see the paintbrush hit the canvas and make beautiful things.”
As she spoke, Thervil sat in front of “Dignity: The Image of My Immigrant Grandmother to Remember” a mixed media portrait of her grandmother that includes gold leaf, salt, and table settings from Bed Bath and Beyond.
“I wanted to really be intentional about how I was manipulating different materials and seeing how I can just make things that looked really exciting and unique and dynamic that were unexpected,” she said.
Thervil’s work “Feelin’ Good,” another large mixed media portrait, was also on display.
Thervil said that she loves using her artwork “as a way to empower people, to help them reflect the beauty they have inside and expand that to the world.”
She continued, adding “I think my evolution as an artist can be attributed to an unending curiosity about materials and how I can make them look different than what I started with.”
Also in attendance was artist Paul Goodnight, who, according to Forrester, is an institution in the Boston artistic community. “His work is in almost everyone’s house in this community,” said Forrester. “Almost,” replied Goodnight, to applause and laughs from the audience.
For Goodnight, being an artist means having a voice. He explained that through his worldwide travels he found “the universal communication is the arts, dance, music, words, all of those things.”
His mixed-media work “Back Stairs Duet,” was on display at the State House. Goodnight said that his work is “a combination of geometric forms and real — figurative — forms. He added that the evolution of his work came from mastery of skills and then repetition and improvisation.
“Get the skill thing down so you can do things over and over again, so you know it,” said Goodnight. “But the second part of that is understanding where the energy comes from. It’s from your imagination.”
Along with bringing wisdom and a lifetime of experience to the State House, Goodnight also brought a new artwork, a photograph of paint-splattered overalls — the same kind that have become a wardrobe staple for the artist, even making an appearance at the Feb. 25 talk.
Titled “Overall, No One Makes It By Themselves,” the work is tied to a book being written about Goodnight’s life and journey.
While each artist took a different path to get where they are today, they gave similar advice to the young, emerging artists in the audience.
Goodnight emphasized the importance of making a commitment to one’s art — “a sacrifice that you enjoy,” he said. Thervil also highlighted commitment.
“It is not possible to look back at your trajectory as an artist if you don’t remain consistent in making things even when you think it doesn’t look good,” she said.
Speaking to his students in attendance, Forrester said, “there are a lot of people in our small community that love and nurture and care for you, but there’s a big world of people who don’t care, they will do whatever it takes to take away that truth … our work as artists … is a battle.”
“I think the message to emerging artists is very simple: Walk in your truth,” said Forrester.
(The “Out of the Fire: An African American Master Artists in Residence Program at Northeastern University (AAMARP) Group Exhibition, curated by Marlon Forrester, continues through April 15 at the Nesto Gallery at the Milton Academy Art & Media Center, 170 Centre St., Milton, Massachusetts. Read Lee Roscoe’s preview of the show in the March/April 2025 19th Anniversary Issue of Artscope Magazine.)