Whitfield Lovell creates delicately orchestrated assemblages that blend surfaces, images and objects and call to memory the African-American experience in the United States.

The artist has a collection of approximately 600 tintypes, cabinet cards and photo postcards of African-Americans, principally from around the turn of the twentieth century through the 1950s. These vintage source photographs provide the basis for many of the works which evoke speculation about the subjects’ lives and experiences as they look out at the viewer with apparent composure and steadfastness. Lovell’s finished works are empathetic yet detached. The drawings reveal African-American spirituality and recall the memories and the heritage that define African-Americans.