Harry J. Elam Jr. takes his place among the gallery of presidents in the Academic Commons—and artist Kenturah Davis ’02 reveals how she captured his dreams on canvas
Writing is a way of drawing for Kenturah Davis ’02, whose art has been exhibited on every continent and is held in more than 25 collections. When she was commissioned to create the official portrait of Occidental’s 16th president, Harry J. Elam Jr., “Without any hesitation I said ‘Yes,’” she recalled.
Thus began a collaboration between the artist and her subject that culminated in the unveiling of the finished portrait, fittingly enough, during a Homecoming & Family Weekend ceremony that brought Elam and his wife, Michele, back to campus October 17.
“My experience here as a student really shaped the kind of artist I am today,” said Davis, who now shares a studio in Altadena with her art-making professor, Linda Lyke. “I’m really invested in how our lives are shaped by the ways we use language.”
After Davis photographed Elam in her studio, she asked him for some texts that had personal meaning to him. “With my process, I essentially make these text drawings thinking about how we embody language that we absorbed over time,” she says. “And then I incorporate that text into the image.”
For Elam’s portrait, a selection of four texts is embedded into the paper. They include two poems—“Dream Street,” by Elam’s sister, Patricia Elam Walker, and “Dreams,” by Langston Hughes; “As Long as a Man Has a Dream in His Heart,” by Howard Thurman; and an excerpt from Fences by August Wilson, the playwright to whom Elam has devoted years of study. (A production of Fences directed by Elam won eight Bay Area “Choice” Awards in 2010.)
There’s a dream theme to these texts. “I had big dreams—I still do—for this place,” Elam said at the reception. “I was touched by all that I saw and experienced here. It was an incredible time to be at the College.”
In figuring out how to weave the different texts together, Davis said she wanted to break it up in a way that doesn’t just read in a conventional format. From a distance, she noted, the text is barely visible. But as the viewer gets closer, “There’s this tension going on where the text jumps out at you.”
As someone who is “self-critical” of her work, “I’m very happy with this portrait,” Davis said, turning to Elam: “I think it evokes the energy and spirit that we encounter as your colleagues and friends and supporters.”
Elam’s portrait will soon take up residence in the Ahmanson Reading Room, where the portraits of many of his predecessors are on display. Gesturing to a portrait of John Brooks Slaughter during the reception, Davis said, “When I entered this school, this fine person sitting just above us was ’s president. So, in a way, this feels like coming ethnically full circle.”
Above photo: From left, trustee Bob Johnson ’77, artist Kenturah Davis ’02, and President Harry J. Elam Jr. in the Ahmanson Reading Room.
