Syrup on Watermelon is Christine Miller’s new exhibition in the AUX/MUTE Gallery. It contains two bodies of work that address and reframe specific narratives of American culture created upon African American people—the stereotypes and its commercialization exploiting Black people and culture using the images of the watermelon and Aunt Jemima as markers. Miller’s installation uses these objects as a vehicle to address this digestion and consumption with an emphasis on Black women.
“Appropriation is not admiration, and exploitation is not love,” Miller says. “Syrup on Watermelon aims to hold up mirrors to false imposed identities and challenges the audience to look at the unsettling nature of these narratives.”
Syrup on Watermelon visually points to layers of marginalization of African American people. Taking the painful associations connected to innocuous objects like watermelons tainted through America’s racist history and furthering the abject consumption of syrup through the Aunt Jemima character, Miller points to our culture’s deeply subtle but indoctrinated identity ingrained with race, commodity, and commerce.
About the Artist
Christine Miller (b. 1990, New York, NY, she/her) is a conceptual artist currently based in Portland. Her work centers around racial imagery, products, and histories while simultaneously reframing her own cultural identity. Miller holds BA from Hunter College and AA in Textile Surface Design from the Fashion Institute of Technology. She has been the recipient of various artist grants along with participating in select artist talks and grant panels. Miller is currently working on her curated magazine Black Playground and closed her first solo show, MULTIPLY, at One Grand Gallery in November 2021. Miller is co-curator with Sa’Rah Sabino for the AUX/MUTE Gallery presented by The Numberz FM, and she will take part in the next exhibition showcasing the Numberz collection of work from BIPOC artists.
Christine Miller, from the series Watermelon Portraits, 2022. Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Jason Hill.