At its best, art can voice for us what we cannot say, or don't yet know. “ Artists and creatives are often called on to assert themselves during times of crisis,” says artist Paul Anthony Smith. “So far, 2020 has given us two major crises: COVID-19 and the continual deaths of Black and Brown individuals at the hands of the police.” According to fellow artist Adam Pendleton, it's precisely in moments of crisis that the freedom of expression inherent to art can best be utilized for good. “Artists today need to be listening, experimenting, and criticizing,” says Pendleton. “Our sphere is a special one—relatively speaking, an extraordinarily free one—and this freedom should be used to the fullest extent. We must make images and extend gestures that endure.” Herewith, young, influential Black artists speak about how they view the role of art in this moment, and how art can transform the world for a better tomorrow. Some of their names you may have heard of, such as the MacArthur Genius Grant winner Njideka Akunyili Crosby. Other names may be new to you. But the familiarity of their names doesn't matter. Because the power of art, particularly great art, is that it makes us feel something just beneath our collective skin, no matter the colour.
Njideka Akunyili Crosby. Image: Instagram Born in 1983 in Enugu, Nigeria, Njideka Akunyili Crosby is among the most talented young artists in the world. Her work has already been sold to the Tate Modern, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She's won a bevy of prizes and awards, including a MacArthur Genius Grant. Crosby's work of collaged paintings is raw with emotion, often verging on the third dimension. “I work from my experiences of growing up in Nigeria and then immigrating to the United States in my late teens,” says Crosby. “Since the [presidential] election in 2016, I've been grappling with my role as an artist.… Some make works that hold up a mirror to the rot (systemic racism, sexism, etc.) in society; some create works that affirm underrepresented experiences, that let you know you are not alone; some create magical moments and experiences that allow us to escape the exhaustion of daily life. I saw my role as creating works that centered a Black-immigrant experience, making people who had any overlap with those I depicted feel seen." But the direction of Crosby's art is subject to change in light of recent events and the beliefs spreading throughout the country from the highest offices in the land: “I’ve been wondering if this affirming representation is enough for me, if my work should go farther to express the anger I feel most days as a Black woman living in the United States.”
Jammie Holmes. Image: Instagram Jammie Holmes is one of those artists whose work is so charged with emotion, containing the raw feelings to a single canvas appears to be a feat in and of itself. For the 36-year old artist, who currently has a studio in Dallas, one question permeates through all of his work: “When can I live like you?” explains Holmes. In discussing his work Endurance, in which a Black man is giving another Black man a haircut, Holmes explains why he created a mural of flowers behind the seated subject. “I put flowers there because I wanted to tone down the Black in us. I’m six-foot-three, bearded with tattoos, and I love jewelry. I wanted us to look safer. It’s sad that we have to live like that.” Holmes made international headlines when on the last Saturday in May, the artist created a massive work that caught the attention of New Yorkers, and the world beyond. Holmes produced a banner and attached it to a small airplane that flew around New York City. The black-and-white banner read, “They’re Going to Kill Me,” which were among the last words of George Floyd.
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A post shared by Jammie Holmes(@jholmes214) on May 27, 2020 at 8:15am PDT
Paul Anthony Smith was born in Jamaica in 1988. His work primarily involves photographic prints that are carefully picked away to create patterns that can take on the significance of walls or chain-link fences. As if in conversation with Jean-Michel Basquiat, an artist who revolutionized the technique of scratching out words or phrases in his work, Smith offers commentary on how Black communities navigate surveillance and marginalization in society. “Often my images tend to be abstracted through the use of a technique called picotage, in which I cut and pick into the surface of my photographic images in order to disguise my figures,” explains the artist. “By doing this, the figures then become anonymous and act as stand-ins to represent multitudes of people.”
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A post shared by Paul Anthony Smith(@paulanthonysmithstudio) on Jan 11, 2020 at 3:03pm PST
Smith's work is both complex and aggressive, a sensation the artist has created by design. “I want people to feel agitated, perplexed as to why I’ve aggressively picked and cut into the surface of my images. I want them to walk away feeling grateful to be alive.” But Smith doesn't want it to end there; he has plans for future works in the wake of George Floyd's death: “As artists we must be engaged in our communities. We must listen and observe the pain of today’s society and transform this energy into positive action, unlike the political rhetoric we’ve been fed.”
Paul Anthony Smith. Image: Instagram Dawn Okoro is a Nigerian-American artist living in Austin. The 40-year-old artist primarily paints figurative art works that pop from the canvas. “Growing up in a small town in Texas, fashion magazines were one of my windows to the world,” Okoro explains. “But since I didn’t see many people that looked like me represented in the pages, I started to paint what I wanted to see.” The art world took notice, as Okoro's work has been exhibited around the world, from Lagos to Miami. "In the current moment we find ourselves in, it's particularly important to me that my work connects with the viewer’s emotions, perhaps showing them in a different way, even if it's a momentary escape."
Dawn Okoro. Image: Instagram
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A post shared by KAMBUI OLUJIMI(@kambuiolujimi) on Feb 21, 2020 at 8:08am PST
Kambui Olujimi, 44, was born and raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. After receiving an MFA from Columbia University and attending Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Olujimi began creating works that sought to challenge established modes of thinking. In his work Twin Flight (above), the artist raises the idea of oppression. “The perpetual gravity of oppression is implicitly understood as the necessary metaphor for fleeting moments of joy before a return to the assumed state of normalcy,” says Olujimi, who has been awarded fellowships from Black Rock Senegal, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, and the MacDowell Colony. “What, then, does the Black body devoid of the ‘inescapable’ gravity of oppression look like?” In his view, the power of art can transcend the times we are living through. “Art predates the sword. Humans make sense of the world through this medium,” Olujimi explains. “We create narratives for ourselves, our neighborhoods, and our nations, we grapple with ideas like death, afterlife, and the cosmos through art…. Art is a transcendent communication that operates outside of language.”
Kambui Olujimi. Image: Instagram Born in 1984 in Richmond, Virginia, Adam Pendleton is one of the top young talents in the US. Consider the following: His work has been featured at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney, and the New Museum, among other venues. He's twice been featured in Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list. And those who own his work range from Steven A. Cohen to Leonardo DiCaprio and Venus Williams. Through his work, Pendleton juxtaposes several complex issues at once, creating works that have multiple meanings for multiple viewers. “There is no way to excuse oneself from history—even unknowingly, all art, all culture has a historical context,” explains Pendleton. “When I use historical material, I'm trying to unsettle the past, to create a different sense of time through framing, reproduction, collage, and juxtaposition, often using things that are themselves already fractured in some way.” Like most artists, Pendleton aspires to create a dialogue with his audience, perhaps now more than ever. “I hope that the viewer feels productively disoriented—that what is given to them does not fit their preconceived notions, and that the work appears to them like its own world.… My aim has always been to invite the viewer into a conversation.”
Adam Pendleton. Image: Instagram Jennifer Packer was born in Philadelphia in 1985. Parker, who in 2012 was an artist in residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem, creates dreamlike works that appear to connect a historical world to the one currently being lived in. Her subjects, which are often friends or family members, at times resemble the works of Chagall. Where her body of work sharply differs from the legendary Russian-French artist is in theme. In 2014, for example, her work Laquan was named for Laquan McDonald, a teenager killed by the police that same year.
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Jennifer Packer #jenniferpacker . . . post by @anthonycudahy
A post shared by Daily Contemporary Art(@daily_contemporary_art) on Feb 27, 2018 at 4:44am PST
Jennifer Packer #jenniferpacker . . . post by @anthonycudahy
A post shared by Daily Contemporary Art(@daily_contemporary_art) on Feb 27, 2018 at 4:44am PST
Sable Elyse Smith was born in 1986 in Los Angeles. Her work has been displayed in a wide range of venues, from MoMA PS1 in New York City to Birkbeck Cinema in collaboration with the Serpentine Galleries in London. Smith, who is quickly ascending the to the highest ranks in the art world, primarily focuses on the culture of incarceration. And that means each person will have a different opinion on that topic, something Smith is entirely aware of. “The work should never say the same thing to every viewer. It is multivocal in its address and affect—that's the point."
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“Or the song spilling out” 😊😍 @carlos_ishikawa
A post shared by Sable Elyse Smith(@sable_elyse) on Nov 8, 2019 at 2:20am PST
Born in Washington, D.C., but raised in Silver Spring, Maryland, Wesley Clark is a young talent who's made a name in the art world by bringing together mixed-media wood assemblages to dazzling affect. In his work My Big Black America, 2015 (below), the artist had been exploring ways of incorporating the continental U.S. map, specifically the 2008 electoral map that elected Barack Obama. "I heard Carrie Mae Weems say that the election of President Obama was the first time many Blacks in the country claimed the United States as ‘my country.’ The idea struck like lightning and I got to work," explains Clark. Like most every artist, Clark hopes his work sparks recognition or understanding for his viewer. “I want them to feel their presence; their claim;a monument made in their (our) honor. I want people to see and consider the industriousness and contributions of Blacks in this country,” Clark continues. “I look at wood as mimicking skin; it holds scars and ages as skin does. And when up close, viewers can see pieces that seem older and newer representing the generations past and present. It's about existence. Claiming and paying tribute to that existence.” In the deeply troubling world we find ourselves in now, Clark, just as he has his entire life, is leaning into art to help him, and society as a whole, find a path forward. “Art has the power to make you question, and that question can take hold deep inside and linger; leaving it for your mind and body to process subconsciously. For me, that's what good art has the power to do.”
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A post shared by Wesley Clark(@wesleyclarkart) on May 30, 2019 at 2:29pm PDT
This article was originally published on Architectural Digest
Feature Image: Jammie Holmes/Instagram
