Aurora photo exhibit 'Skillets' showcases natural beauty
Some say the beauty of America is that the nation is a melting pot, full of different individuals mixing together and creating something new.
But Aurora photographer Donnell Collins offers a different take on each individual's beauty through his photo gallery “Skillets,” on display until Dec. 4 at the Aurora Public Art Commission.
The gallery showcases a collection of portraits, mainly showing African-American girls and women who Collins said “maintain their natural hair and are proud of their skin color.”
“My point is to show that there are things that each one of us have that God has blessed us with uniquely, whatever it may be,” Collins said. “You're supposed to look at (the photos in “Skillets”) and approach it just like you'd approach a piece of art, but not to envy it and desire it.”
But often, he said, people look at physical features in pop culture and advertisements and begin to desire those features instead of their own.
“I'm trying to kind of instill some self-esteem in young people and tell them ‘You're fine how you are and you don't have to go out and purchase beauty,'” he said. “I just want kids to be healthy about their approach to how they look and I don't want them to feel like every time they see an image on TV that they've got to live up to that image.”
Rena J. Church, curator of the Aurora Public Art Commission's downtown gallery at 20 E. Downer Place, said the message of Collins' photo exhibit can benefit a broad audience, including schoolchildren and educators.
“It really is an example of what the beauty industry does to African-Americans in this country,” Church said. “I think it would make a wonderful traveling exhibit.”
The photos fit into an expanding cultural and academic discussion of just what defines beauty, Aurora University history professor Gerald Butters said.
“Beauty is expansive in terms of it being a definition,” said Butters, who specializes in U.S. social and cultural history and gender and racial issues throughout history. “It seems to be a very pervasive theme in our culture now. There's a fairly serious discussion of what beauty is, not only in regard to race, but also with age and body size, body image.”
Most photos in the exhibit are portraits of a person's face, but some show just a single body part, Collins said. Each photo is framed with reflective glass that allows or forces viewers to see themselves along with the art.
He began taking photos to illustrate the theme of natural beauty in the late 1990s, but said he shot all the images used in “Skillets” within the past year.
Even the name of Collins' exhibit puts a spin on the cultural definition of beauty.
When Collins, 54, grew up in Aurora in the 1950s and '60s, he said the word “skillet” was used as a derogatory term for people with very dark skin.
“I wanted to kind of put a twist on that and use a derogatory term, but then when you see the pictures you'd see something really, really beautiful,” Collins said. “So I wanted to give it a positive spin through this exhibit.”
If you go
What: “Skillets,” a photo exhibit by Donnell Collins
When: Noon to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday until Dec. 4
Where: Aurora Public Art Commission gallery, third floor, 20 E. Downer Place, Aurora
Cost: Free
Info: (630) 256-3340 or aurora-il.org/publicarts