Dell Marie Hamilton, Lavaughan Jenkins, Ari Montford, Jamal Thorne, Karmimadeebora McMillan, Jameel Radcliffe
Black Futures: How to See in Total Darkness
Jamal Thorne
01. Untitled No. 19, 2019, mixed media on paper, 22 x 28 inches, 36 x 22.5 inches with frame, $4000.00
Dell Marie Hamilton
02. Mitosis I (Double-Consciousness) from the Can’t Even Pandemic in Peace series, 2023, collage, mixed media, approximately 93 x 90 inches, $5000.00
Jamal Thorne
03. Untitled No. 26, 2021, mixed media on paper, 30.25 x 22 inches, 34 x 25 inches with frame, $4000.00
Karmimadeebora McMillan
04. Generations, 2023, acrylic, collage on canvas, 68 x 89 inches, $20000.00
05. Ms. Merri Mack / Annie Get Your Gun You Got My Back, 2018, acrylic on wood, 24 x 24 inches, $3200.00 (2 Ms. Merri Macks)
06. Ms. Merri Mack / I See Stars, 2019, acrylic, collage on wood, 24 x 36 inches, $4500.00 (3 Ms. Merri Macks)
07. Once Upon A Time, 2023, acrylic on canvas, 64.5 x 70.5 inches, $14000.00
Jameel Radcliffe
08. Dre’ Tordo Bronceado, 2022, oil, paper on canvas, 36 x 30 inches, $3000.00
09. Recuerda Que Tu Tienes Que Morir, 2022, oil, paper on wood, 48 x 36 inches, $5000.00
10. Glo Gaza, 2022, oil, paper on canvas, 36 x 30 inches, $3200.00
11. SLYCLOPS Búho, 2023, oil on canvas, 60 x 48 inches, $10000.00
Karmimadeebora McMillan
12. Spirit Stick: Red, Black and Green Jungle, 2019, acrylic on wood, 69 x 5.5 inches, $1800.00
13. Spirit Stick: Red, Blue, and Green Cityscape, 2019, acrylic on wood, 63 x 4.25 inches, $1600.00
Dell Marie Hamilton
14. Mitosis II (Double-Consciousness) from the Can’t Even Pandemic in Peace series, 2023, collage, mixed media, approximately 91 x 81 inches, $5000.00
Lavaughan Jenkins
15. Nigel and the Portal #1, 2023, Gaffrey acrylic paint, spray paint over foam, 17h x 9w x 7d inches, $5000.00
16. Nigel and the Portal #2, 2023, Gaffrey acrylic paint, spray paint over foam, 17h x 9w x 7d inches, $5000.00
17. Nigel and the Portal #3, 2023, Gaffrey acrylic paint, spray paint over foam, 17h x 9w x 7d inches, $5000.00
Ari Montford
The Boston-based artists presented in this exhibition, all poignantly represent a multitude of approaches that are informed by their lived experiences, their formal training as well as a broad range of discourses on how race, gender, social relations, history and culture substantively shape both figurative and abstract art. As such there are no easy answers when it comes to the production, reception and meaning of Black Futures.
In many instances, these artists are wrestling with themselves, their passion for collective work, and the material conditions of a world that wasn’t built for them. As a result, their source material and artistic influences run the gamut: Hip Hop, Louise Bourgeois, Yayoi Kusama, The Wiz, Goya, Philip Guston, Kehinde Wiley, Marvel Comics, Frankie Beverly, Francis Bacon, James Luna, Grace Hartigan, Romare Bearden, Mark Bradford, Christina Sharpe, Nicole Krauss, W.E.B. Du Bois, Toni Morrison, Hans Hoffman, Barkley Hendricks, David Hammons, Joyce Scott. A dizzying array of voices to be sure. But they all serve as creative heroes and antagonists that propel these artists towards excavating what is unique and authentic to each of their practices.
Black Futures: How to See in Total Darkness is dedicated to the work and scholarship of Dr. Edmund Barry Gaither, the founding Director of the National Center for Afro-American Artists, and artist and educator Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons. Through their dedication and commitment to engaging artists of all genres and backgrounds, they have charted a path forward for many generations to come.
Dell Marie Hamilton has performed extensively throughout the New England area including at the MFA/Boston and Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College. In 2019, she was a participating artist in the Havana Biennial and is a recipient of the ICA/Boston’s 2021 Foster Prize. Her interdisciplinary practice encompasses live performance, painting, drawing, installation, video, and photography. Her work has appeared in Hyperallergic, Art in America and NKA: Contemporary Journal of African Art as well as in the anthology AntiBlackness edited by Moon-Kie Jung and Joao H. Costa Vargas which was published by Duke University Press in 2021. She is a recipient of the U.S. Latinx Art Forum’s 2021 inaugural cohort of the Charla Fund, a Ford Foundation-sponsored initiative that provides grants to Latinx artists. This fall, she will be the inaugural guest curator for the Black Artist Residency program at the Fitchburg Art Museum. Dell also works on a variety of research, editorial and curatorial projects at Harvard’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research.
Jamal Thorne, a Boston-based artist, is known for visualizing the nature of preformed identity through massive drawings. Blending references from popular culture and religious iconography, he creates images of multilayered identities in the wake of overconsumption. Performed identity interrogates the line that divides the African American male experience and the universal experience. The most important questions that emerge are which identity needs to be performed, for whom should it be performed, and which identity is authentic. His work generates questions, not answers, so the discussion is open and ongoing.
Thorne received his BA in Photographic Media from Morgan State University in 2008 and relocated to Boston where he became a pioneering student in the newly formed cooperative MFA between Northeastern University and The School of the Museum of Fine Art. He received the Joan Mitchell MFA Grant in 2012 and his work has been exhibited at the James E. Lewis Museum of Art in Baltimore and the Huret and Specter Gallery in Boston, to name a few. Thorne walks in the legacy of his cooperative program by serving as a faculty member at Northeastern University and continuing his art practice.
Jameel Radcliffe has been focused on abstract painting, but his work can range from portraiture to purely abstract works. Jameel Received his BFA from Montserrat College of Art in 2017 and has recently had his first solo show at The Flowering Rock, exhibiting a series of abstract works. Jameel is working as an educator/mentor to young artists at Artists for Humanity and is painting out of the Dorchester neighborhood. Being of Puerto Rican and Black descent, he offers a deep well of cultural influences, as the music, food and daily experiences within his community show themselves through each mark on his paintings.
Radcliffe states, “Who is the character that I allow the public to see? We express ourselves through the things we wear, how we style our hair and accessories that we feel convey character to others. I choose to celebrate that. The color that this expression contributes to our everyday lives is essential for communication and understanding within our communities. Like a person can wear a ring to make a statement, a bird can dawn a crown. The bird becomes a symbol of this celebration as they are more than just animals in these paintings, they are also representatives of the part of us that we don’t have to try.”
Karmimadeebora McMillan was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina and is based in Cambridge, MA. She received a MFA in 2013 and a Post Baccalaureate certificate in 2011 from The School of the Museum of Arts at Tufts, Boston. McMillan’s paintings are influenced by her southern childhood. Characters from racist’s propaganda and black dolls wander through brightly colored and fragmented landscapes.
After graduate school McMillan worked for the well-known street artist Swoon for five years as her business manager and helped start her non-profit organization Heliotrope Foundation.
McMillan has also performed with her mentor Magdalena Campos-Pons at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Queens Museum in New York, and Havana, Cuba Biennale 15. Karmimadeebora is the Director of the Post Baccalaureate Program and part time lecturer at SMFA at Tufts, Boston.
Lavaughan Jenkins is a painter, and sculptor from Pensacola, Florida and currently creates his work in Boston, MA. He received a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2005. Since that time, Jenkins has become a recipient of the 2019 James and Audrey Foster Prize awarded annually by the Institute of Contemporary Art / Boston, 2021 Fine Arts Work Center artist in residence, and latest Addison Gallery of American Art Edward E. Elson Artist-in-Residence.
Nigel; a stand in for protectors, protestors of every color who march and fight the disease of white supremacy.
The portals act as a beacon or connector to all wrong doing which allows the Nigel’s of the country to jump into action wherever needed.