Our Ancestor's Somber Story: Tar Top

Tar Top is a creation by Radcliffe Bailey, an Atlanta-based contemporary American artist. He is best known for mixed-media, paintings, and sculpture works that explore African American history. This work is made of tar, tar paper, acrylic, oil stick, encaustic, glass, plexiglass, photographs, silk and dried flowers, fabric, and electric lights on wood. It measures a massive 96 x 120 x 11 inches. Featuring one of Bailey’s iconic vintage photographs, this layered collection of tar-covered objects honors African Americans and the dignity and strength in which they have survived and thrived for generations in spite of intentional cruelties bestowed upon them. Bailey indicates that “The ancestors dance in us daily. They dance and sing and whisper, hoping we hear them and see them and dream them back into relevant being.”