Domenica Bongiovanni
6:07 p.m. EST November 4, 2015
JConline – Lafayette Journal & Courier
Finding your way into Ellen Mansfield’s art isn’t difficult. Bright, varied colors turn a glance into a stare. Paintings, tiles, mandalas and more offer multiple means of communication. And although each work centers around a focal point, details spin out layers of meaning, leading viewers into a deaf world that includes vibrancy and struggle.
With her exhibit, “My Deafhood Art: Traveling Through the Darkness to the Light,” Mansfield wants to impart the darkness of being kept from using American Sign Language as well as the joy she has experienced personally and as part of the deaf community. The solo show, which Mansfield said is her first in a gallery, is up until Feb. 14 at the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette.
Deaf awareness and her interest in the arts led Shireen Hafeez to seek out deaf artists whose work could be displayed in Greater Lafayette, she said. Hafeez does advocacy work with Indiana Hands and Voices, an organization that helps families with deaf and hard-of-hearing children find communication options. She brought in deaf artist Warren Miller a few years ago, museum executive director Kendall Smith said. After reading about Mansfield, Hafeez said she reached out to her in hopes of launching a second exhibition.
“Artwork, it’s very powerful. It shows a very powerful message,” Mansfield signed as Morgan Geeslin, president of the American Sign Language Club at Purdue University, translated. “You can … show how deaf people live through deaf pride or through oppression.”
Mansfield said she fell in love with art at an early age. Without being allowed to use sign language or have an interpreter as a young student, Mansfield writes in her artist statement, she had trouble learning in school and was expected to blend into a hearing society. She obtained a bachelor’s degree in illustration from the School of Visual Arts in New York City, she wrote, and after a move to Maryland, she realized how her absorption of deaf culture manifested itself in her work. She now works out of her studio, TileStroke, in Frederick, Maryland.
Mansfield, who is not connected with Indiana Hands and Voices, is a deaf activist, and this is key to understanding her work. A major part of her message, she said, is to promote ASL as a natural language equal to spoken languages and to fight audism, the belief that those who can hear and who act as those who can hear are superior to those who don’t. Deaf children, Mansfield said, often have been forced to assimilate into a hearing culture, made to speak and considered unequal to their hearing counterparts.
Mansfield is part of De’VIA
