Erik Burke – New Wheat Pastes in the Margins

Those longing gazes are from your family, those red-lines are through your neighborhood, those abstractions are your intersections with poverty, wealth, race, beauty, and power.

Overunder. Gary, Indiana. (photo © Overunder)

OverUnder had a “whirlwind 72-hour pandemic tour” that led him through Chicago and Gary, Indiana, and his brilliantly human painted wheatpastes showed up on many a pressed-wood board. The impolite truths of neoliberalism – neglected neighborhoods of our de-industrialized 2020, now licking ever closer to you and yours.

OU brought his kids too, at least in his paintings. “I also put in one piece that I made with my daughter – you can see her nice little pink additions.”

Overunder. Adonis standing in front of a portrait of Mayor Hatcher. Gary, Indiana. (photo © Overunder)

“There is also a portrait of a young man named Adonis next to a piece I put up of Mayor Hatcher with some abstract red lines across it (redlining),” he says.

“He was the first Black Mayor of a big US city along with Carl Stokes of Cleveland in 1967.”

Oh yes, those days of promise back then, you think.

Overunder. Gary, Indiana. (photo © Overunder)
Overunder. Detail. Gary, Indiana. (photo © Overunder)
Overunder. Gary, Indiana. (photo © Overunder)
Overunder. Gary, Indiana. (photo © Overunder)
Overunder. Gary, Indiana. (photo © Overunder)
Overunder. Gary, Indiana. (photo © Overunder)
Overunder in collaboration with her little daughter, Mackie. Gary, Indiana. (photo © Overunder)
Overunder. Gary, Indiana. (photo © Overunder)
Overunder. Gary, Indiana. (photo © Overunder)
Overunder. Chicago, Southside. (photo © Overunder)
Overunder. Chicago, Southside. (photo © Overunder)
Overunder. Chicago, Southside. (photo © Overunder)
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