We are thrilled to announce the institutional acquisition of Jade de Montserrat’s, All, Everything, Representation, 2024, And Ain’t I A Woman, 2023 and Necessarily Pass Through, 2016 for Leicester Museum and Art Gallery with the help of Contemporary Art Society.
All, Everything, Representation depicts the eyes of Tarana Burke, the founder of the ‘Me Too’ movement. A prominent survivor and activist for racial, economic, and gender equality, Burke’s presence in de Montserrat’s work underscores a commitment to bearing witness and making sense of injustices.
The drawing Ain’t I a Woman combines the title of Sojourner Truth’s 1851 speech with the colours of the Progress Pride flag. By placing these images together, the artist provokes questions about how past freedom fighters can inform contemporary struggles. Truth, born into slavery, escaped and spoke powerfully about her experiences while advocating for women’s equality. The Progress Pride flag, designed by non-binary artist Daniel Quasar in 2018, incorporates colours representing trans and LGBTQI+ communities of colour, calling for greater inclusivity.
The depiction of afro hair in Simply / Necessarily Pass Through is subversively humorous, conjuring the powerful possibilities of unruly female desire and abundant curls. Mounds appear in several of de Montserrat’s drawings, symbolising or becoming interchangeable with a head of afro hair. She depicts her hair entangled with various rural landscapes, employing visual slippage between her body and the environments in which she grew up. In Yorkshire, for example, the wooded hill seen from her childhood window transforms into an Afro.
The former two works were exhibited in Jade de Montserrat’s recent solo exhibition In Defence of Our Lives at Bosse & Baum in 2024. The latter work was exhibited in Jade de Montserrat’s solo exhibition with the gallery in 2021.
Jade de Montserrat’s work is strongly aligned with the permanent collections at Leicester Museum and Art Gallery, particularly in relation to the collecting strategy that focuses on themes of migration, dislocation, and personal identity. Leicester Museum and Art Gallery is widely known for its collection of self-portraits by German Expressionist artists. Fittingly, Jade de Montserrat’s works on paper have now joined the growing collection of self-portraits by remarkable women artists.
Images:
Jade de Montserrat, All, Everything, Representation, 2024, watercolour, pencil crayon, pencil, fountain pen and ballpoint pen on paper, 42.7 x 52.8 cm
Jade de Montserrat, Ain’t I a woman, 2023, watercolour, ink, gouache and pencil on paper, 39.7 x 30.7 cm
Jade de Montserrat, Simply / Necessarily pass through (double-sided), 2016, watercolour, gouache, pencil, pencil crayon, ink, graphite on paper, 49.2 x 39.4 cm
