Hudgens prize winner’s exhibition shows disabled ‘are worthy of making art’

The dreaminess of a child’s world is echoed within the walls at the Hudgens Center for Art & Learning.

Cloud cutouts in silver glitter float next to red-and-white plaid valances that hang over windows. Reminiscent of an elementary-school classroom, the space swirls in innocence yet to be shamed by social critique.

Moving clockwise around the room, the mood swings between personal pride and self-consciousness.

The work of artist Victoria Dugger is being shown at an exhibit called "Must Be Nice" at the Hudgens Center for Art & Learning. (Courtesy of the University of Georgia)

“As a Black disabled woman, I just wanted to paint what I knew,” Dugger told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“‘Must Be Nice’ definitely has a double meaning. It references the phrase that we all have said at some point — imagining a future or life that might be greener, but it’s still a fantasy.

“Art is all about fantasy and life coexisting.”

The style, according to Dugger, creates tension where “horror and the South meet.”

Based in Duluth, the Hudgens Center for Art & Learning awarded Dugger the organization’s 2024 artist of the year. “Must Be Nice” is her first solo show at the center, and Dugger’s largest in scale and installation overall.

“My subject is me, and that hasn’t always been the case historically in painting,” Dugger explained. “I wanted to showcase that people, like me, are worthy of making art.”

“Must Be Nice” is a variety of paintings, sculptures and installation art whose layers and varied textures cause multiple aspects of the pieces to appear in different dimensions.

The collection begins with a young Black girl in pigtail braids. Blue and purple hair extensions twist throughout her coils and hang in beads off her shoulders.

Dugger explained the girl is a snapshot of her younger self, when she transitioned from adolescence to adulthood.

“I’m very influenced by cartoons in general, Looney Tunes and Disney more specifically,” Dugger said.

“The imagery of my work that references the more racist imagery is actually a sum of its parts,” Dugger said. “I never wanted to explicitly reference race, but Black bodies are and will always be politicized.”

"Bed Bugs Bite," (2024) by Hudgens prize-winning artist Victoria Dugger. (Courtesy of Sargent's Daughters)

In a subseries of two-dimensional pieces, a caricature of a Black woman wearing a blue bonnet presents herself as a central character. Sharp red nails, jagged gold teeth and saggy breasts, she’s grotesque but simultaneously endearing, with licorice-black skin that’s sifted in glitter. Red ballet slippers adorn her feet as she walks on crutches.

“The central character is definitely a reflection of me,” she said. “It’s definitely not a one-to-one self-portrait, but it’s playing on different sides of myself.”

“She’s often a caricature of prejudice or bias that I feel as a disabled Black woman,” Dugger said.

Circling the gallery, the white room appears ingenuous until finer details indicate that it’s not.

Installations show a brain and heart served on two separate platters. Another features intestines on a fancy dining plate. A pair of white satin gloves prepare to cut into the serving with surgical clamps and a scalpel.

Dugger said she underwent additional invasive procedures after the corrective bone fusion surgery when she was a young child. The process left her and her family in a vulnerable state.

“It’s kind of jarring to think about yourself exposed to others,” she said. “As someone in a wheelchair, my biggest insecurity is very visible. So, it’s hard to hide your emotions from people.”

It’s complex. But Duggar said the beauty in life is the ability to experience the complexity of different emotions.