LOOK BENEATH THE SURFACE

Mural depicts human bondage

Artwork commissioned for Cincinnati center to be unveiled first Columbia

By JOEY HOLLEMAN - jholleman@thestate.com

From the defiant faces of the boy and girl in the foreground to the hollow eyes of the child soldier in the background, the raw emotion of human bondage spills from the latest mural by Benedict College art gallery director Tyrone Geter.

The powerful 8-by-12-foot work was commissioned by Benedict as a gift to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Ohio, but the school's leaders were so proud of the work they wanted South Carolinians to see it before it's shipped off to Cincinnati.

So after the unveiling at a private reception at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Columbia Museum of Art, the mural will be on display in the entry foyer at the museum through mid-January. That means people can see it for free.

Benedict College art gallery director Tyrone Geter

Benedict College art gallery director Tyrone Geter, shown in 2001 with work from a mural he completed after fellow artist Tom Feeling died. He will unveil his new mural at a private reception at the Columbia Museum of Art on Tuesday. It will be on display through mid-January, then move to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Ohio.

Mural on display

After a private reception at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Columbia Museum of Art, Tyrone Geter's new mural depicting the horrors of child soldiers and human trafficking will be on display in the entry foyer at the Columbia Museum of Art through mid-January.

Geter hopes people in Columbia and Cincinnati react similarly to the Benedict board of directors, who got a sneak peak at the mural a few weeks ago.

"Not one person made a sound for five minutes after we pulled the cloth off," said Love Collins III, Benedict's executive vice president for institutional advancement.

They were following the instructions of the work's title: "Look Beneath the Surface." The goal is to take that sentiment much further than art appreciation and into the real world, where awareness can help stem the human bondage that's all around us.

This will be Geter's second mural at the Freedom Center. Five years ago, he finished a mural conceived by friend and former USC art professor Tom Feelings, who died of cancer before he could complete the project.

Geter is proud of that work, which depicts the traditional notion of antebellum slavery and the Underground Railroad to freedom. But it's not really his.

"I may have painted it, but it was Tom's work. I was trying to make it look like something Tom would have done," Geter said. "When this one came up, I was excited because I wanted a piece of my own" at the Freedom Center.

Collins came to Benedict in 2007 after serving as a vice president at the Freedom Center. When a friend at the center discovered Collins was leaving for Columbia, he pointed out that the artist of the slavery mural taught at Benedict.

"I had walked by that mural every day, and I didn't realize somebody from Benedict had done it," Collins said.

When he arrived in Columbia, Collins struck up a friendship with Geter. He suggested to school leaders that they commission Geter to create another mural to help the Freedom Center with its new emphasis on modern-day bondage.

Geter jumped at the opportunity and came up with a concept that focused on the horrors of child soldiers and human trafficking. "I was excited about making a statement about exploited children who have no one to speak for them," he said.

But as he worked on it, he realized it was too in-your-face. The images might have scared schoolchildren and prompted adults to turn away before the message sank in.

"If there's one thing I've learned, it's if you hit people too hard, they won't look," Geter said.

So he backed off, taking a more subtle approach. Observers have to examine the mural carefully to see the gun in the child soldier's hands, and to notice it's pointed at another person's head. The cash in the slave trafficker's hand only peeks out of his pocket.

And then there's the woman, caring for two children sitting in her lap. She depicts a less recognized form of bondage, one that's personal for Geter.

His mother was pulled from school as a child to work the fields, then later put to work in the low-paying, no-benefits job caring for the children of others.

"That's my mother," Geter said of the domestic worker in his mural. "She worked 20 years to get me one year of education.

"For someone like her, it's a form of bondage. You can't leave the job; you're not educated. The only thing you're qualified to do is what you're doing."

There are plenty of people in this country and around the world in this less obvious form of bondage today. But Geter's experience offers hope for them. His family stressed the value of education, and two generations after his mother left school as a child, children in the Geter family grow up with the expectation of attending college.

As he did research for the mural, Geter felt anger, disappointment and sadness that so many people worldwide still live in bondage of some form. But as his work came to life, he began to feel a sense of satisfaction.

"I felt like I accomplished what I wanted," Geter said. "People will look at it and think about what's going on."

Reach Holleman at (803) 771-8366.

The Unveiling

of “Look

Beneath

The Surface”

Now on display

at the Columbia

Museum Of Art

thru January

17, 2010. Free

to the public.