BY KRISTA RAMSEY The Cincinnati Enquirer She is wrapped in the circle of her own arms. Long scarlet fingernails dig into her emerald sweater. Her beautiful brown face shines above it all. ''This is one of my favorite paintings,'' says Brian Joiner, quietly. ''My Aunt Billie. She lives downtown. Has never driven. Has always walked. I call it 'Billie's Embrace.' '' Aunt Billie is beautiful indeed. Exuberant, free, her nature revealed in a stunning exhibit through Feb. 28 at the Arts Consortium, 1515 Linn St., West End. It is called Black Woman Series I, but might as fittingly be known as ''Brian's Embrace.'' Mr. Joiner has drawn more than 100 women into not only the warmth of his rich, colorful style, but also into the world of American art. He has painted African-American women's faces, and he has painted their souls. As one of his subjects told him, ''Thank you. It's about damn time.''
Stories behind faces''The black woman's story has never been told,'' he says, moving quietly through an exhibit so powerful it jumps off the Arts Consortium's walls. ''I've seen photographs, but never a show of major paintings of black women. But behind the scenes, black women have been responsible for a lot of things people don't know.''By occupation alone, these women cover a lot of ground. Singers, teachers, attorneys, factory workers, engineers, businesswomen, judges. But Brian Joiner has reached beyond what these women do, to show us what they do to us. If visitors leave this exhibit without some sense of how this city has been shaped by strong, smart black women, then they simply weren't looking. ''I feel like that woman,'' says one subject, Merri Gaither Smith, face-to-face with her portrait for the first time. ''I see a caring person, a person who's very busy. I know how I feel about myself and, somehow, he captured that.''
Portrait of the artistTo be a subject of Brian Joiner is surely an exquisite experience. He listened to the women before he painted them, asking them how they see themselves, what role they play in the world. What they told him determined how he portrayed them.''I'm sitting there, absorbing their looks, what they're saying, what they're not saying,'' he says. ''The look of women, the idea of womanhood - they are so fascinating to me. I look at them as a mystery to be revealed, unveiled.'' That would be enough to draw us to this groundbreaking exhibit. And, with all those beguiling faces to be studied, visitors do have the urge to run from room to room and woman to woman. But there is a second fascinating theme beating through this exhibit. The women aren't the only ones revealed here. So is Brian Joiner. This was the boy who drew before he walked. This was the child who started with sea creatures, moved on to vases of flowers and finally hit a dinosaur so good it earned a summons to the principal's office. ''You have a gift,'' the principal told him. Brian already knew about the gift. What he wanted was a vision of what to do with the gift. It was longer coming. Brian earned a degree from the Cleveland Institute of Art. Then he moved to the corporate world. A pleasant place. Just not his place. For 11 years, he put his brushes down. ''I was struggling. I had nothing to show. The only thing that was progressing was my journal (of creative ideas) - and that was all talk and no action,'' he says, surrounded by his exquisite paintings. ''I started to withdraw. Nobody was listening to me. I had no effect on anybody.'' Brian Joiner could have lost his soul in that dark time, and Cincinnati would have lost the chance to better know its own. But one morning, he picked up his brushes and knew that he would never put them down again. ''It's like I've been released from something,'' he says slowly. And surely he has been. Set free. Set free to show us names, lives and faces that we must never take for granted again. One of them is his own. Krista Ramsey's column appears on Saturdays. Write her at the Enquirer, 312 Elm St. Cincinnati 45202.
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