RAM Showcase: Bodies

March 12, 2025 – March 14, 2026
at Racine Art Museum

Kevin Snipes
Hooz Yer Mammy (Vessel), 2012
Glazed porcelain
9 x 2 1/2 x 4 inches
Racine Art Museum, Gift of David and Jacqueline Charak
Photography: Jon Bolton

The human figure is often used to tell stories, symbolize existence, and represent the human condition. Featuring works from RAM’s collection, RAM Showcase: Bodies reflects people’s desire to study, analyze, and respond to the human body as form and content. Made from clay or washi paper, the works included in this exhibition underscore the enduring artistic interest in the body as subject.

All of the works in this exhibition were made by artists of color—a significant fact that adds layers to the subject matter and ways it is depicted. This distinction is critical for some contemporary artists of color, as their work adds narratives to art histories that generally marginalized or excluded them.

Individually, the artists represented in RAM Showcase: Bodies explore a wide range of issues, including social and cultural dynamics, the sensual body, emotions, the connection between human beings and animals, history, and relationships between duality and otherness. Sometimes self-portraits, sometimes not, the subjects portrayed are envisioned or recorded through flat, drawn images or sculpted forms and reflect vibrant voices and engaging perspectives.

Artists in this Exhibition

Kyoko Hazama, Kelly Phelps, Kyle Phelps, Esther Shimazu, Kevin Snipes, Akio Takamori, and Kukuli Velarde