This painting shows three overlapping views of a Black woman with medium-brown skin and dark, wavy hair, framed inside a softly brushed circular field. At the center, she faces us, brown eyes steady, her crossed hands resting just below her chin. To the right, a profile version of herself looks out, lips gently closed; to the left, another profile bows her head with one hand partially covering it. A sheer, pale cloth wraps their shoulders and hair, its gauze-like folds sweeping in arcs across the surface. Within this veil, to the right side as if uplifted in the palm of her hands are two brown-skinned boys moving through a small patch of ground and sky with one poised mid-run and the other leaping with arms flung wide as he grasps the trailing fabric. Swirling strokes of muted teal, earth brown, and cream fill the background, evoking air, water, and continuous motion. Painted in 1967 within Texas Southern University’s influential HBCU art program, Gordon’s casein self-portrait turns a student exercise into a statement of purpose. The three views of herself can be read as states of being: alert and present, inward and reflective, weary and guarded. The shared veil, a motif she also uses in her mural work, binds these selves together like a protective net that stretches outward to include the boys in the background, whose running and leaping bodies evoke children, students, or younger kin whose futures she seems to cradle. The swirling atmosphere and round format suggest a world in motion, while the central gaze stays steady, insisting on the dignity and complexity of a young Black woman artist shaping her own image within an HBCU context and in the permanent collection of the University Museum at Texas Southern University.
"Self-portrait" by Erma Gordon (American) - Casein paint on canvas / 1967 - University Museum at Texas Southern University (Houston) #WomenInArt #art #artText #BlueskyArt #ErmaGordon #UniversityMuseum #TexasSouthernUniversity #WomensArt #WomenArtists #WomanArtist #SelfPortrait #HBCUArt #BlackArt
