2020

Victor Armendariz Gallery is thrilled to present paintings by William Blake in My Eyes Have Seen the Glory, the artist’s first Chicago exhibition.
Known for his highly charged depictions of Civil War reenactments, Blake’s powerful paintings show the recursive bodies of reenactors as they gesture across time.  Participating in over 40 reenactment events, Blake currently interprets as the artist-correspondent Winslow Homer at these battle reenactments.   He immerses himself in the materiality of his own obsession by constructing period clothes, camping on battlefields, and documenting the reenactment similar to Homer’s documentation of the authentic war.
The figures in the paintings reverberate the past with respect and with a desire to educate, humble, and play. With each annual iteration of American Civil War reenactments, the reanimation of the past encourages a review of history and aids in its continuous revision.