He does not "hate" whites, however; "there's no time for that." And, unlike many creative Negroes past and present, he wants to remain in this country. "I'm not against America; I'm against the American philosophy." If Patrick Henry is a legitimate hero to whites, blacks have just as much right, he feels, to idolize such men as Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, Muhammad Ali, and Rap Brown.
Chandler favors loud colors, even garish ones, and sometimes employs intentionally rough and unsubtle comic-strip techniques. His broad-stroke work often recalls Rouault. He himself especially admires and acknowledges the influence of Picasso, Rivera, Braque, Beckmann, Buffet, and the Negro muralist Charles White.
Another body of his work exhibits concern with black dignity and traditional beauty. Here his colors are more restrained, his lines more elegant and refined. The paintings "Black Family," "And Still the Champ" [Muhammad Ali], and "Nude in Black" even suggest Modigliani. And several of his sculptures in the show are exquisitely crafted, such as "Black and Beautiful" and the delicately slim "Lovely."
Like a fair but fragile vase,
Triumph of the carver's art,
Graceful formed and slender,--
Thus thou art. [Dunbar]
The son of a longshoreman and one of ten siblings, Chandler was born in Lynn but raised in Roxbury. He received the degree of B.S. in Education from the Massachusetts College of Art last June, and now supports his wife and three daughters by working as community coordinator of the Jamaica Plain Area Planning Action Council, Inc.
This job takes some 40 or 50 hours a week, but painting is his true love and he devotes his weekends to it. He works fast (most of the ninety or so paintings in this exhibit were done since June), but would welcome a more relaxed pace. Trained in all media, he makes use of whatever he gets his hands on--canvas, beaverboard, masonite, linoleum, oils, watercolors, acrylics.
He is stocky, has a handsome bearded face, and chooses to wear a symbolic slave bracelet. He is extraordinarily articulate verbally, and, by funneling his anger into his art, can afford to be genuinely warm and personable in face-to-face dealings with whites. There is, thus, a division in his work between violence and restraint, and a division in himself between anger and cordiality.
This schizoid sort of position is one in which more and more young Negroes are finding themselves these days, and the situation is reflected in several of Chandler's pictures that carry the title "Split Personality." Particularly impressive, too, is the small, subdued painting called "Many Faces of the Black Man," which calls to mind a poem of Dunbar's:
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,--
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties....
Dana Chandler's exhibit has already stirred up controversial reactions from its viewers. Some have been moved, some have been scandalized. I guarantee that no-one leaving the show, black or white, will emerge the same person he was on entering. And this, of course, is precisely the artist's aim.
Assuredly, Chandler doesn't plan to be another Invisible Man. And on being asked what his longterm ambition is, without an instant's hesitation he shot back the proper answer: "To be the best black artist America has ever seen."