Every year for Ponchatoula’s Strawberry Festival an artist is chosen to create a poster unique for the year’s festivities. This year’s artist was Kalle’ Siekkinen and upon the reveal of his poster, controversy immediately arose on social media networks. Half of the people claimed the painting to be racist while the other half stated that it was completely innocent. The poster portrays two faceless black children, a boy and girl, one who is holding a basket of strawberries.

The concept of this painting being racist is absurd. The piece has no hint of hostility or mockery behind it.

Viewing Siekkinen’s other art, he primarily paints faceless black children, and even uses the same boy and girl character models from the Strawberry Festival poster in other paintings. No one seemed to complain about these, which leaves me wondering what made this poster so different from the rest found in his gallery.

Siekkinen actually drew his inspiration from his late mentor Bill Hemmerling, who also has several paintings of faceless black people. Siekkinen paints his characters with a heavy dark paint, but I see it as his own way of expressing his characters as well as a homage to Hemmerling.

Some viewers are arguing that the piece is reminiscent of blackface, a practice common in the 19th and 20th centuries where white performers would put on theatrical makeup to make themselves appear black and then engage in shows which ridiculed African-American culture. When you compare Siekkinen’s image of the two children with that awful practice, the idea does not hold up, because there is nothing mocking in the artwork. Art is subjective, meaning each person is going to view it differently. It is unfair for a person to claim it was the artist’s intent when that is their own perspective.

Others state Siekkinen’s poster brings up a time when black people were still slaves working in fields. I can’t buy into that theory either considering the clothing the children are wearing. The children are dressed in their Sunday best; I doubt slaves worked in the fields looking like they were dressed to take a lovely portrait. Also, the young girl with the basket of strawberries has nothing to do with working in the fields, but the fact that this was indeed a painting done with the idea of the Strawberry Festival in mind. Are artists never allowed to portray a black person with a basket of any kinds of fruits ever again?

One can’t even make the claim that it is racist due to the faceless portrayals. Art with characters lacking faces has existed for many years now and is used to portray a variety of people.

I feel that since we live in a society where racism is still a problem being dealt with, people have almost come to expect it even where no ill will is meant.