Point Richmond
Post Office
Art of the African Diaspora
Sculpture & Paintings
Lawrence H. Buford
&
LaMelanin Buford
March 11—May 6, 2024
Lawrence H. Buford worked as a lithographer and master printer throughout the East Bay for over thirty years. After retirement, he moved to the Napa Valley and began his career as a fine artist. He immersed himself in the study of the human form, drawing, painting and sculpting, and consumed texts on art history and every art course that local colleges Solano, Napa and Contra Costa Fine Arts Department had to offer.
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In recent years Lawrence has sculpted busts and created drawings depicting well-known figures such as Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X and John Lewis as well as forgotten heroes and victims of slavery and Jim Crow. Lawrence's works are an attempt to respond visually to the disturbing state of our nation. Although the present can be viewed politically the work is expressive of more than gloom.
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"This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. This is how we heal."—Toni Morrison
Email: Natlar48cs.com
LaMelanin Buford (Lawrence Buford's son), drew comics and made zines when he was a teenager. The cut and paste layout design and xerox art allowed him to be creative while he was still developing his drawing skills. He made a handful of zines and then started making posters based on the style he had created from the zines. In his early 20s he started doing graphic design and he believes that working with Adobe Illustrator gave him an appreciation for lines.
The freedom LeMelanin observed in street art characters and graffiti in the San Francisco Mission in the late 90's inspired him to create tribal masks. Most of his work falls into the category of Black Futurism, highlighting the play between African patterns and elements of science fiction.
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Email: Mbuford510@gmail.com
104 Washington Avenue, Point Richmond, CA 94801