Nine artists at HEMPHILL created a coloring book during the COVID-19 stay-at-home mandate. The gallery printed limited editions and published a downloadable digital copy on July 15.
“Art endures and so will we,” HEMPHILL states in its opening pages.
At first glance, the project seems whimsical, but there is also depth to the artwork that speaks to the times, like shapes that are placed at a physical distance and Black fists that rise up from a chaotic scene. City Paper, which also put out a coloring book cover recently, spoke with the six contributing artists based in the Washington area—Julie Wolfe, Renée Stout, Robin Rose, Hedieh Javanshir Ilchi, Steven Cushner, and Rushern Baker IV—posing the same four questions to each of them to learn more about their HEMPHILL coloring book work and their art.
These interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.