D. Del Reverda-Jennings is passionate about empowering women of color and women artists. Raised in Chicago, the Alaskan native of Dominican, Puerto Rican and African American ancestry is a multi-disciplinary artist and curator whose influence on the greater visual arts culture in Indianapolis, Indiana, has been tremendous.
Not only has she become a celebrated artist, but for several decades she’s humbly created impactful opportunities for other artists, encouraged creativity, and launched art careers.
“I have worked diligently to empower artists as a vocal activist and advocate,” she says. Her commitment has been steadfastly effective.
“At the onset in the mid-1990’s there were very few opportunities available or welcoming spaces in the Indiana region for artists of color,” she says. “We as creatives were barely visible, few were acknowledged, and it was challenging trying to make a name for yourself. The deeper infrastructure of a hierarchical bureaucracy in relation to the Black and POC communities have always been complex realities.”
During her first attempts to share her work in professional settings she realized that the art world was not as inclusive as portrayed.
Of those early experiences she says, “Administrators and heads of major arts-related entities vocally rebuked and cavalierly stated that work created by Black artists was of little value, limited in scope, primitive or naive at best and that Whites didn’t give a damn about Black art, did not want Black artwork, images or faces on their walls.”
However, she found a venue that appreciated her vision: the College Avenue Branch of the Indianapolis Marion County Public Library.
She then purposefully created a juried show there for underrepresented artists called “Celebration of Spirit.” Now well-known as FLAVA FRESH!, it’s in its 27th year. Multicultural, intergenerational and inclusive, it has created interest, appreciation and opportunity for the 50 participating artists each year.
Still, she says, “Black progress in daily life over the last decade or so has been impressive, but the United States has miles upon miles to go on the journey to becoming racially equitable. Despite the negative experiences, unseen boundaries and roadblocks, we persist.”
These themes are in her distinctive works which she says reflect “identity, women’s issues, colorism, Négritude, social commentary, stereotypical assumptions, indigenous wisdom, folklore, ritual, myth, magic, memory, the sensual, spiritual and the sacred.” Having never had children she considers her sculptures her children, their creation a process of birth.
This year, her large-scale mixed media sculpture Zen was in “The Truth of Freedom: African Diaspora to Afrofuturism” at the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. Her work has also made its way to the 2014 Harlem Fine Art Show in Chicago and Art Basel in Miami in 2016.
In curating hundreds of shows over three decades Del Reverda-Jennings has broken barriers and won accolades like the 2023 Governor’s Arts Award and the Creative Renewal Arts Fellowship in 2013 and 2017 from the Arts Council of Indianapolis. Her dreams for her work include a museum solo show, international gallery representation and the Venice Biennale.
“As far as I can remember, I have always had driving creative proclivities. My grandparents recognized and nurtured the abilities,” she says. She paints, chisels, burns, collages, prints, welds and uses any means to create. “I am a constant student, perpetually inquisitive, exploring and experimenting in order to enhance my practices and craft.”