ABOUT THE ART

Black Wholes as Possibilities. A quick Google search will return the following facts about black holes. According to NASA’s website,“A black hole is an astronomical object with a gravitational pull so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape it. The “surface” of a black hole is called its event horizon.The event horizon is the boundary beyond which nothing can escape the black hole’s gravitational pull, not even light. This means that black holes themselves are actually invisible, but evidence of their impact can be detected on objects, space, and even time, as you get closer.“Black Wholes as Possibilities” is an exploration of black holes as a way to understand the long-standing absence of holistic depictions of Black folks (Black Wholes). It explores what its like to be and experience a Black (W)hole. How does it feel from the inside looking out. The distorted vastness of the void experienced when you are not seen as whole...Made invisible by the weight of your experience. When encountering the change engine that is a Black whole who do we become on the other side? What possibilities for new ways of being exist on the other side?

Medium: Photographs

Nashville, Tennessee born and Durham, North Carolina raised. I’m a visual artist creating at the intersection of community and my imagination. My formal education includes a Bachelors in Sociology from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and a Masters in Public Administration and Policy Analysis from Georgia State University. My professional and civic background is in education, environmental and mobility justice. My artistic education includes lots of independent study, mentorship, and practice. I am self taught artist that approaches my creative practice with the same rigor as I did my undergraduate and graduate studies.

I create out of a sense of responsibility to my community and a desire to answer three persisting questions. “What would make this world better?”, “How can I work to create it today?” and “what do I need to heal in myself to create it”. My work is informed by the intersection of my identities as a Black, Cisgendered, heterosexual man, my self proclaimed nerd-dom and obsession with science fiction and being from the American South.  

I use installation, photography, graphic design, woodwork, cultural space-making, and community organizing as mediums for my creative work...Through these mediums I facilitate conversations between the individuals and their own imagination. I take the familiar and abstract it enough to stretch our perception of what is possible. In doing this, I imagine new worlds where we are less concerned with validating our humanity than exploring its limitless possibilities. I want to show that the radical new world so many of us are fighting for is actually a basic human experience. My hope as an artist is for individuals experiencing my art to reflect on their existence and expand their conceptualization of what is possible.

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