[gentle music]
- Angela: Life is full of layers.
[bag crackling]
- Fatima Laster: My art is usually absence of form,
so that falls in the category of abstraction.
I do more gestural work,
and so it's about movement and color.
- Angela: Stripping away one layer to get to the next.
- People really have to get comfortable
with being uncomfortable,
without being told what the piece really is.
- Angela: Until finally revealing what's hidden within.
- There's many layers that are hidden in the work.
You know, you have to really study it
and look at it to appreciate it.
[car engine chugs]
- Angela: Fatima Laster did just that
when she purchased this abandoned building in 2018.
[light music]
- Prior to now, the space was built in the 1920s,
and it's always been a funeral home.
Most people current day
know it as a Black-owned funeral service facility.
- Angela: And transformed it into an art gallery.
- I wanted to make it a very communal space
and share the space with other artists
with a mission and focus of highlighting artists of color
and other marginalized artists
who still have under-representation issues
in our industry at large.
- Angela: Located on the north side of Milwaukee
in the Five Points neighborhood,
buying the building was an opportunity
to give back to the community Fatima grew up in.
- This is my childhood neighborhood,
and it's a conscious reinvestment in that.
When you look at fine art--
which this is a fine art space-- you're going elsewhere.
You're going downtown.
You're going to the suburbs.
You're going to another city.
You're going to another country.
And so, I sought to make this place
as like a globally-appreciated space
that you have immediate access to.
- Angela: The gallery allows her to display
underrepresented forms of art.
[electronic music]
- So I might gravitate what to some people might call "weird,"
but I show the range.
I've done attractions, I've done realism,
I've done sculptures.
- Angela: Support from the community
has helped fuel the project.
- Fatima: And I got a lot of support
through everyone who came through this space
and they liked and appreciated the new use.
[electronic music]
- Angela: Fatima's been stripping away
misperceptions of art her whole life.
- And so, we just try to create a new experience
and a new concept of what art and art-making is
and what is considered art for the space.
So, then, there should be something for everyone.
- Angela: And revealing the value hidden within.
- So, this was the goal.
I feel accomplished with this.
And it's just allowed me, you know, evolve from here
and grow from here like I want to.
[light music]