On the Other Side of Everything (section)
By Calida Rawles, 2020
A figure dressed in a crisp white shirt appears to melt into rippling water in this 2020 painting by Calida Rawles. The body is only partly there, the upper half breaking apart into streaks and ripples while the shirt catches light with almost photographic precision. Rawles has built a name for painting Black figures floating in water, and this piece shows why her canvases tend to stop people in their tracks. The realism is remarkable, yet the whole image slips into something soft and dreamlike, as if the person is caught between being seen and disappearing.
For Rawles, water is never just water. It can mean peace and healing, but it also holds a heavy weight in Black American history, from the horrors of forced ocean crossings to the era of segregated swimming pools. Placing her subjects in this floating in between space lets them exist as both calm and strong at the same time. The title, On the Other Side of Everything, carries a gentle hope with it, a sense that something better might be waiting past all the struggle.
The real pull of the piece comes from the fight between sharp detail and blur. Your eye wants to lock onto the person completely, but the water keeps pulling them out of focus, leaving a mystery that sits with you rather than one that gets solved.