Freedom Riders & Bus Boycotters by Charlotta Janssen
I walked into the Hudson Milliner Art Salon and was wowed by a sea of green faces. It took me a minute to realise that I was looking at mugshots.
Charlotta Janssen’s ‘Freedom Riders’ is a series of more than 80 portraits depicting the men and women who were arrested during the civil rights movement for demanding desegregation and equal rights.
After seeing mugshots of the Bus Boycotters from 1956 and Freedom Riders from 1961 on The Smoking Gun, Janssen was eager to learn more about the individual experiences and unique personalities of the brave activists involved.
“These are extraordinary humans, Freedom Riders from the east, west, south and north, who didn’t stand by idle. They thought things out and took careful and well planned action, a crucial element that made for their success. For this I want to celebrate them, tell their stories to all that will listen…”
Painted between 2009 and 2011, Janssen took newspaper articles, documents, and personal artefacts gathered from the Freedom Riders themselves and collaged them over beautiful teal toned portraits, which she outlined with black iron paint and rusted copper.
Mug Shots are normally portraits of shame, but in Janssen’s work we see their heroism, determination and courage.
The Freedom Riders series was part of a travelling exhibition shown throughout the United States. Janssen has since illustrated a children’s book about Freedom Rider, Joan Trumpauer.
Charlotta Janssen was born in Maine to German parents living in America under the Marshall plan. In 1973, her family moved to Iran, which they fled during the revolution in 1979. Janssen studied painting at the University of Arts in Berlin, dropping out to travel the world as a street musician and performance artist. To make sense of all these experiences, she returned to painting in 1991 with a clear voice that was no longer searching but finding. She currently lives and paints augmented portraiture in Brooklyn, NY, USA.