About the exhibition at King Manor Museum:

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Based in part on a 17th-century engraving by G. Child, artist Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow’s ceramic works in “Valor & Revolt” explore themes of survival during chattel slavery and are partially inspired by the slave revolts that took place in Jamaica, West Indies in 1831. These life sized works are on view throughout several rooms of this museum. 

The artist came across this image of the engraving in the text, “Tacky’s Revolt” by Vincent Brown while working on a research based collaborative performance project about sugar cane plantation slavery with the University of Edinburgh, Scotland which debuted at the Institute of Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica in 2022 titled, “Living Histories of Sugar” and was inspired by these West African tools and weapons that were confiscated by European colonizers and in some cases traded with Africans for guns. As you view the exhibition in these rooms you’d find the artists’ work consisting of swords in the bottom drawers of Rufus King’s study, axes in the servants parlor, bows and arrows in the kitchen, and knives in the dining room drawer.  In the upstairs parlor above the fireplace there are the artists’ hand rendered ceramic shields that are in conversation with her ceramic archery beneath images of George Washington signing the constitution and on the opposite wall his wife Martha Washington at an event celebrating the American Revolution. 

On the south corner of Rufus King’s upstairs bedroom Lyn-Kee-Chow’s 2005 ceramic and mixed media installation piece titled, “Mirror, Mirror” is installed next to the window and in the closet facing the bed.

In this work, the artist borrows from Victorian and country-style ornamentation and takes inspiration from the fairy tale, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to create idiosyncratic and whimsical self-portrait sculptures. While making this work the artist questioned American society’s dated beauty ideals that discriminate against age and race and cast her own face as a method of archiving her own image in that reality. In doing so, the metallic reflective surface of the mirror simultaneously obliterated her identity and enhanced it. By choosing to not cast her eyes the artist invites the viewer to contemplate their own experience of looking into the mirrors and to have their image morphed with her own. 

This exhibition is made possible (in part) with public funds from the  Queens Arts Fund, a re-grant program supported by New York City Department of  Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and administered by New York  Foundation for the Arts.