Congratulations to spring Concentration instructor Jamaal Barber on the recent publication of his illustrations in a new edition of Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad from The Folio Society.

This celebrated novel tells the story of an African American girl named Cora and her escape from slavery using a literal underground railroad. It is a mind-bending tale that is both imaginary and brutally realistic.

“I always wanted to be an illustrator,” Jamaal said, “particularly a kid’s book illustrator, which is what really inspired me to start doing art in the first place. And I never thought I’d get the opportunity to be able to do a project like this. This is really my dream coming back to me after so long.”

“I wanted to take this challenge because a lot of my work is about blackness,” he said, “and my work also speaks a lot about history and how important it is that we properly contextualize what happened to get us where we are and to know where to go afterwards. So I do feel that it’s a big responsibility to celebrate the story and to tell it properly.”

For these illustrations, Jamaal combined his first love, woodcut, with his more recent interests in painting and mixed-media. “The book came right at that point where I’m starting to merge the two things and kind of create this beautiful mashup of the bright, colorful stuff and the original texture of woodcuts.”

When, after months of working and then waiting, he finally had a copy of this beautiful book in his hands, Jamaal smiled broadly and said, “Wow!” Then he said, “It takes a lot of work to be an artist, you know, and you don’t get many moments like, ‘I did it.’”

More on this great project here.