Aaron Douglas Art Fair selects Aisha Imani Sanaa as featured artist
Aisha Imani Sanaa was always the arts-focused kid in school. Drawing and coloring came naturally to her.
Her mom and aunt served as inspiration and a source of encouragement when she was growing up.
Sanaa, of Lawrence, continued to carry that spirit with her through high school and college. A few years ago, she decided to tap back into her creative side and create art that speaks to resilience, self-love and self-care.
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The Aaron Douglas Art Fair has selected Sanaa as this year’s featured artist.
An artist reveal party will be 6-8 p.m. May 14 at ArtsConnect, 909 N. Kansas Ave., in NOTO. Guests will have the opportunity to meet Sanaa and view her artwork.
This year’s art fair will be 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sept. 25 at the Aaron Douglas Art Park, 1211 S.W. Lane. It is free and open to the public.
Sanaa has been inspired by Aaron Douglas’ work
Sanaa’s connection to the fair’s origins and Douglas himself date back to when she was a Topeka High School student.
She was one of the students who volunteered in 2005 to help paint the mural that is located at the Aaron Douglas Art Park.
Sanaa said being selected as this year’s featured artist feels like a full-circle moment.
“It’s really honoring to me, and it really does feel like a full circle and that’s really important to me,” Sanaa said.
After Sanaa started having kids, she was unsure how to fully invest her time raising children but also making time to create art.
“I was wanting to give everything to being a mom, but, at the same time, I knew that I was very driven and really wanted to pursue my own dreams and my own career,” Sanaa said.
She finally gave herself the opportunity to pursue her dreams. Being selected as the art fair’s featured artist is a reminder that she chose the right path.
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Sanna said she has always felt a connection to Douglas, a native Topekan and Topeka High graduate.
Douglas was known for creating art using stylized African and Egyptian images, cubism, art deco styles and repetitive designs.
He was also a prominent artist during the Harlem Renaissance, a movement centered in Harlem, New York, that spanned the 1920s and 1930s, focusing on the revival of African-American art, music, dance and fashion.
“The Harlem Renaissance had always been one of my favorite movements of Black expression,” Sanaa said. “His style was what we would call now pro-Black and afro-centric, which wasn’t really the theme during that time in his era, among his peers. But for him to do that, I think that was very revolutionary.”
Sanaa said she finds herself incorporating Douglas’ styles into her pieces.
“I think I’ve noticed that more since I’m being more intentional about the things that I create versus just creating stuff that people ask me to do,” Sanaa said. “Now that I’m having to find my own voice and create my own style, I do definitely see traces of his influence in my work.”
Art focuses on resilience
Sanaa uses a variety of mediums to create her artwork, including acrylic, watercolor, prints, textiles, colored pencils and black ink.
She started by creating realistic art pieces before being introduced to West African Adinkra symbols which symbolize traditional principles.
“As humans, we read symbols so much quicker and so much better than words because it’s easy for our brain to comprehends,” Sanaa said. “I really loved that idea so I started incorporating symbols more into my artwork.”
After being introduced to Douglas’ art, Sanaa became more comfortable with incorporating figures and colors into her pieces and creating abstract art.
One of her favorite pieces is a portrait of her grandmother. Painted on a black background, the portrait picks up her grandmother’s essence. It was one of the first paintings where Sanaa focused on adding details to a piece.
Sanaa’s featured piece for the Aaron Douglas Art Fair is called “Rise” and features a lotus flower being lifted up by five figures.
The lotus symb
olizes the resilience and resourcefulness of the Black slaves who migrated to Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado to escape violence.
“It’s basically just saying that now we need to uphold those principles in order to have the new beginning that we want and kind of the same spiriting they had to have when they were migrating south into the Midwest towns and creating their own towns,” Sanaa said.
Sanaa said she hopes her artwork represents the beauty of resilience and pushing forward.
“I think that a lot of times, not just in the Black community but as humans, we get stuck in highlighting what’s wrong and kind of forget that sometimes in the midst of going through things, there’s something building inside of us that will evolve into something beautiful,” Sanaa said. “As long as we can keep pushing and keep going through, we will see the other side of what we are going through.”
