Suzanne Scott Constantine
Mixed media on canvas, 2023-2024. 30” x 30”

The inspiration for this piece is Paul Klee’s 1920 monoprint, Angelus Novus (New Angel), which was popularized by Walter Benjamin’s 1940 essay challenging the concept of history as a narrative of progress and triumph. This work reflects my visionary rendering of the spirit of Anna Julia Cooper as the New Angel of History. The artwork offers a new perspective on the idea of the eternal present.

The work itself is a palimpsest—layers of text, textures, and paint over several prior paintings. Undergirding what you see in this work are three paintings holding the names of every unarmed Black person killed by police between 1999 and 2020. The names are not visible, but the New Angel of History holds them in her very person. She looks directly at us, over blurred out skyscrapers and country roads, with her eyes of love and wings of hope.