Afro-CubismOil Paintings by Milly

(1979 - 2003)

the Collection

Afro-Cubism

The Lady Blue

The artist identifies with her daughter,

merging the features in an artistic “cloning.”

Maasai Mara

The artist reflects about the fierceness of a man defending his

home. The Maasai are a nomadic tribe in Kenya with vast landholdings where development dares

not penetrate.

The Prodigal SonThe artist welcomes her son from Zambia, after seven

years of absence.

Sande Dance

In Liberia, the Sande Bush is a tribal society or “bush school” where girls are taught everything they need to know to enter into womanhood.

The ceremonial dance, the “breaking bush” dance, is performed by girls graduating from the Sande school.

GenerationsThe artist paints the features of four generations of women---her mother, herself, her daughter and granddaughter---into one image.

DinkaA young Dinka Warrior smiles

candidly, poised as a

crane. Colonel Khadafi is reputed to have female Dinkas as his

personal bodyguards.

The Return

A young refugee returns home, dressed in a foreign outfit

while others look on.

Humpty Dumpty

Allegory on the Americo-Liberian people, who “sat on the wall” in the aftermath of the 1980 military coup d’etat in Liberia, ushering the first aborigine Liberian into power as the Chairman of the People’s Redemption Council (PRC).

The Other Society

Allegory on the “sons-of-the-soil” who took

control of the government in Liberia,

driving out the “Humpty-Dumpties” back to the United States.

the Artist

Artist StatementConflict, Contradiction and Consciousness: an artist’s evolution

Milly Buchanan was born in Monrovia, Liberia in 1944 to a German-Jamaican immigrant and a Liberian of Americo-Liberian descent. Milly's artistry began in Vevey, Switzerland, where her talent was first noticed, at the age of 10, by a prominent Swiss artist, Guy Baer, who tutored a young Milly once a week for nearly a year, imparting his classical technique in oil painting, which still characterizes her work today.

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Artist StatementConflict, Contradiction and Consciousness: an artist’s evolutionHer early work, mostly still-life, landscapes, and portraits, clearly followed the great European Masters of the 15th century, but Milly developed her personal style, called Afro-Cubism, in the late 60s. Reminiscent of Picasso, Braque and Modigliani, Afro-Cubism was her shattered-glass art expression of the socio-political turmoil in Liberia. The artistic epiphany occurred when a large mirror was shattered, and in the mirror's reflection was an ebony carving of a woman's head. The broken glass reflected the fragmented splinters of the statuette. Looking at the carving in its wholeness, and seeing her refractions in the shattered mirror, the images reminded Milly of the multifaceted emotions, experience and aspirations of each individual. The jagged edges of the reflection served as a metaphor of life itself, and she would combine a cubist style with the beauty of Africa to create a personal style all her own.

The 27 oil paintings in her "Crying Out" series are Milly's purest Afro-Cubist expressions and reflected the social, political, and economic turmoil that engulfed Liberian society. The tumult drove Milly to other African countries in search of a common denominator to art forms, where she found additional inspiration as an artist.

Truly a renaissance woman, Milly is also an architect, a UN conference interpreter and translator speaking five languages (French, German, Italian, Spanish and English), and a former model (including September 1971 Ebony Fashion Fair poster-model, Essence magazine). Milly's extensive sub-Saharan Africa life, coupled with her personal and professional relationships with Africans from all walks of life (the late President Sekou Toure of Guinea to recording artists Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba to uncelebrated market women, students, farmers, and fisherman) have produced a unique perspective from which to artistically represent the essence of the African struggle and spirit of resilience and hope. Milly is also a founding member of the Union of Liberian Artists an organization that creates a forum for the exchange of personal experiences in various refugee camps, motivates young self-taught artists to develop their skills, hosts art exhibits and promotes their works.

Retired since 1998, and mother of five adult children and twenty grandchildren, Milly now focuses all her time on painting. As she reflects on her artistic track record over some five decades, impressions of mindset redirection, national reconciliation, and reconstruction in her native Liberia can easily be seen in the vibrant colors of Afro-Cubism.

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the History

Afro-CubismAn Artist’s Personal Style

Nearly a quarter of a century ago, Milly was commissioned by the Liberian Government to immortalize the establishment of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) during its summit meeting of African heads of state, in Monrovia in 1979. The ensuing artwork, titled “Birth of a Nation,” still adorns the wall of the OAU in Monrovia. Progressive change in Liberia at the time was captured by the artist and architect's one-of-a-kind "Afro-Cubist" style, which represents the jagged path leading to peace, prosperity, and unity of all peoples and the violent emotional clashes that entails while pursuing freedom.

Milly’s oil paintings from her Afro-Cubist collection “Crying Out,” which illustrate not only her dynamic style of painting in oils, but the challenging technique of the Italian 15th-century masters, are known as chiaro-oscuro (light and dark layers of paint with up to six coats of paint).

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For more information e-mail:

millyb14@yahoo.com© 2009 Milly Buchanan

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Music:Pata Pata by Miriam MakebaLady by Hugh Masekela