Artwork
Artist Statement: With a focus on the building’s unique architecture, I set out to highlight crucial aspects of Big Bethel’s history through its familiar landmarks and iconography. As ‘Jesus Saves...at the Ballot Box’ symbolizes how a spiritual impetus can serve as a mechanism for pragmatic community engagement.
As I like to represent a spectrum of ideas and observations--this image evokes my abiding appreciation for humanity and their belief systems that provide agency to thrive, create, and celebrate.
Tina Marie Dunkley (b. in New York, NY) has been part of the art world from a young age; she graduated from the New York High School of Music & Art, and subsequently earned her B.F.A from the New York School of Visual Arts and M.A in African American Studies from Atlanta University. She has also studied International Affairs at the doctorate level at Clark Atlanta University. Dunkley’s service in the arts includes 35 years as Curator and Director of the Clark Atlanta University Art Museum. Daughter of West Indian parents and granddaughter of Jamaican artist, John Dunkley, Tina Dunkley has maintained a professional career as an artist throughout her tenure as arts administrator, curator, writer, and educator. Inspired by the struggles of African descendants displaced throughout the Western Hemisphere, her work explores the experience and politics of denial that informs much of the history of the Americas. Dunkley has stated that her work is “influenced by the full-circle recognition of her ancestors’ journey through slavery five generations ago.”