The sacred figures he never saw: The artist painting Black angels across L.A. and the world
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Set us as preferred Growing up in Compton, Anthony Lee Pittman looked around at the paintings during Mass and never saw any Black or brown angels.It’s an absence that never left him.
The lack of representation contradicted what he knew to be true: Holiness also resides in Black and brown people.The experience galvanized his art, and from his palette, he’s crafted the divinity he always knew existed — a conviction that came from the village of women who raised him, especially his grandmother, who never made him feel anything less than divine.Pittman is among a wave of visual artists in Compton who are filling the neighborhood spaces with work that reflects the city’s creativity and complexity, from the major rebuild underway at Centennial High School, to the new performing arts center at Compton High School and artist Mr.
Wash’s plans for a $15-million arts center.On the ground, it feels like a local renaissance.
Take a drive through Compton and you’ll encounter Pittman’s work: murals at Gonzales Park, A New Beginning Resource Center, Compton High School, and drawings across utility boxes along Compton Boulevard and Douglas Dollarhide Drive.He also has paintings and sketches that fill his studio.
One of his acrylic paintings, featuring two angels soaring above the Rev.Martin Luther King Jr.
monument, now anchors a larger body of work, “Los Angelitos.” The title itself is a play on Los Angeles and “Angelitos Negros,” the poem later popularized through recordings by artists including Eartha Kitt, Roberta Flack and Celia Cruz.Black souls also go to heaven.The first mural in Pittman’s “Los Angelitos” project features five angels painted on the wall outside Patria Coffee Roasters, facing Wilson Park.
“Many of my projects can be traced back to this space,” he told me, citing the several cups of coffee he’s shared there with collaborators and curators from spaces like Compton Muse...