Harry Seymour’s art is arresting both for its stunning visual impact and the meaning behind the work, each amplified through an evocative accompanying poem.

Seymour uses his unique pastel scratchboard technique, a subtractive process of continually adding medium and then scratching away, repeating this process until he is satisfied that he has created a painting that stimulates the eye and mind.

The 25 pieces in “Paintings and Poetry in Harmony” at the Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse through August 10 are rich with meaning. Seymour draws upon the beauty of the Island and his African American cultural experiences for inspiration. “Much of my work is driven by a conversation I’m having with myself in trying to understand the turmoil we all face in our country and the world,” he states. “It is not to convince others about anything, but to deepen my understanding of why ‘isms’ are such a powerful force contributing to hatred, injustice, and inequality. I amplify this conversation by creating images enhanced by the power of poetry that capture the universality of the human condition beyond simply Black versus White.” 

And this faceted sentiment is perfectly embodied in the show.

“Paintings and Poetry in Harmony” opens with “Bridge Jumpers,” which is at once brimming with symbolic meaning and an arresting composition. Children of all shapes, sizes, and shades clamber and jump, abandoning themselves to the pleasure of play where race, politics, and socioeconomic status are irrelevant. The poem begins:

A leap of faith
Forbidden yet sought
For a joyful delight
With a diverse mix
Of age, gender, and race
In a rainbow of hues
That cast a memorable glow
For those who play
In gravity’s pull

Children are also central to the message of “Defiant Alliance.” In a strikingly symmetrical image, a Black girl stands on tiptoe on the back of a white young boy sipping at a “white only” water fountain, facing a white girl in the same position opposite, supported by a young Black boy. The four children are smiling in alliance, defying the separation of the races. “They are allies in the struggle,” comments Seymour.

There is a bittersweet air to “Imperiled,” with its impressive image of a small Black boy squatting in the sand at the ocean’s edge, with an oncoming roiling wave that could engulf him. While here on the Vineyard, he is safe, likely coming from privilege, but the “real world” is out there, reflected in the poem with the same name:

Early to jail, early to die
hold your ground
privilege belie
Too many bound
Incarceration is their fate
Black on black won’t abate
Stop and frisk
Need to pray
For those at risk
Imperiled are they

Seymour’s fine draftsmanship teems in his rendering of cars boarding the ferry at the Vineyard Haven Steamship Authority in “Departure.” His poem “Vacationing While Black” imbues this familiar scene with poignancy. The opening stanza speaks of the realities of driving and shopping while being Black, then evokes the sanctuary the Vineyard can provide, and ends with a punch:

There’s worshiping too
In a Union Chapel pew
Culminating in renewal
Of body, mind and soul
For Blacks who are many
Not just a few
Who undoubtedly dread
When departure is due
Vacationing while Black.

Seymour symbolically refers to the story of Esther and the Underground Railroad in “Esther, Fugitive Slave.” She alights on a jetty on a misty night in 1743, escaping from a ship in Edgartown Harbor. The locomotive beneath comes toward us, tying the subject matter to the present, as does the end of the poem when referring to descendants of the enslaved:

No longer running and hiding
To imaginary phantom stations
With destinations uncertain
Not north, south, east or west
But to the nation intended
As land of the free
Where “wheels keep on churning”
To the heartbeat of freedom|
And to the conductor’s call
All aboard.

“Critical Race” is a stunning work also full of intriguing symbolism. A school borders the top. Below to the left is a classroom with a teacher pointing to the “elephant in the room” — what no one is speaking about, which we see to the right is a scene of the enslaved picking cotton. But rushing into our space are the winning Black and white racers carrying someone of the opposite color on their backs. Seymour states, “The critical race is about race and the solution is that we help each other as in piggybacking to address racism, with an understanding gained from learning about the consequences of slavery, the elephant in the room.”

Seymour probes other imperative issues. In “Holding Hands,” we glimpse from beneath a bright red beach umbrella two men of indeterminate age walking with hands clasped. With their backs to us, they could be any couple. It is a tender moment that is both a declaration of love and a potential act of defiance. He writes in the accompanying poem of the same title:

Holding hands in public
An overt sign of affection
Also, of sexual orientation
For the love of another
Is on display
But if same gender
A history of secrecy
Hid such emotions
In a closet of self-doubt
From being found out
About love outside the box
Of society’s orthodox
Until the veil was lifted
From the hidden self-inside
That bursts with joy and pride
In a jubilation for all to see
A Pride parade, Pride flag
The Pride month of June
And throughout the year
Holding hands is routine.

“Ferry Dusk” speaks of a challenge that affects every one of us, that of aging. Against a cold winter sky, empty seats fill the ferry deck as though the living souls have departed. Seymour’s masterful use of color enhances the melancholy mood perfectly conveyed in the opening of the accompanying poem “Winter of Old Age”:

Deck’s all but empty
There’s a chill in the air
As dancing clouds above
Float ghostly images
To nature’s blues
No longer here
Those hibernating souls
With haunting voices
Of shivering warmth
Stir thoughts of fate
Irreversibly linked
To a winter of old age

The exhibition brims with many other potent works. Seymour explains, “All of these paintings represent my struggles to understand how it is that we are in a place where all these human problems exist. But at the same time, if you look at human history, there has always been struggle. And the perpetrators are mankind. What is it about us? Maybe if we can get a better understanding of why we act this way, perhaps there will be some solutions.”

Seymour, who acknowledges his success, states, “But, why should I care, since ‘I’ve got mine,’ and America provides the same opportunities for other African Americans to do the same? Well, I can’t help myself, because I understand that the forces that contribute to racial divisions in our country remain an existential threat. Indeed, we may be on the precipice of losing freedoms endowed by living in a democracy, a lifeline particularly crucial for African Americans. If democracy fails, the consequences for Black America can be grave. It is often said, When White America gets a cold, Black America gets pneumonia.”