Portfolio
Art in the Loop - Public Art Installation
Temporarily installed on the Library South Bound Streetcar stop in Kansas City, Missouri is an image still from How To Build an Altar for the Living (2021).
This work was selected from an annual open call and proposal process for the Art in the Loop Project, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to engaging artists in the ongoing revitalization of Downtown Kansas City.
To read more about this public art installation and its inspiration, click HERE. This temporarily installation was on view from June 2023-November 2023.
This is not for you.
This is not for you is an installation piece meant to mimic surrounding museum signage. It is a stand alone sign that reads "Black People Only Past This Point". This sign, intended to protect the sacred space created for One day, you will die, first appeared as part of A Time For Action, a six-night experimental inter-disciplinary micro-festival hosted by the Blaffer Art Museum (Houston, TX).
Following the two-hour installation, visitors were invited to participate in a group discussion. This discussion, facilitated by Angelique Geehan, Luana Da Silva, and Kat Chaffin, allowed space for Black visitors to voice their visceral reactions to non-Black people entering the gallery beyond the sign.
Non-Black visitors were asked to confront their inherent uncomfortability with being excluded from an area that was not intended for them. White visitors who surpassed the sign grappled with their socialized sense of entitlement and how their actions directly correlate to internalized and actualized white supremacy and colonialism.
(Photos by London Vallery.)
2 ft x 2 ft x 4 ft metal stanchion, ink on 8.5x11 inch white paper
2 ft x 2 ft x 4 ft metal stanchion, ink on 8.5x11 inch white paper
2 ft x 2 ft x 4 ft metal stanchion, ink on 8.5x11 inch white paper
One day, you will die.
One day you will die is an interactive installation inspired by my personal reflections on Black mortality and its effect on the legacy building of Black descendants. This installation first appeared on day three of A Time For Action, a six-night experimental inter-disciplinary micro-festival hosted by the Blaffer Art Museum (Houston, TX).
Each element in this installation is intended to allow Black visitors an opportunity to reflect on their personal legacy and give reverence to their sacred existence. Each Black visitor is invited to consider which parts of themselves they will leave behind by responding to six prompts displayed on the surrounding walls.
Flowers are an essential part of this installation. As Black visitors finish responding to the prompts, they are reminded that they do not have to earn their flowers in order to deserve them.
(Photos by London Vallery.)
Live daisies, plastic container, sharpie; 14x14x20 inches
Wooden chair, red yarn, potting soil, brown paper, black paint; Varying dimensions
Live daisies, plastic container, sharpie; 14x14x20 inches
How To Build an Altar for the Living
An homage to Black lineage, Black legacy, Black oral histories and Black mortality.
Audio (begins at 11 seconds): Voice of my 101 year old great-grandmother, Jessie Sampleton-Mayberry
Music: "I Believe" (feat. John P. Kee) by The New Life Community Choir
Click the Vimeo icon at the bottom right of the video to view an audio transcript.
Is my trauma aesthetically pleasing
enough for you?
Infographics and cartoon reenactments have become the default, palatable way to spread information (on social media) about the murder of Black lives at the hands of the law enforcement.
Why must conversations about Black bodies dying be palatable in order to be reputable? And who is this palatability for?
Purposefully created for free, on Canva.com. Posted to my public Instagram page on February 12, 2021.
16’’ embroidery hoop; sewing thread, faux leather, paper and glue
Scrap wallpaper from my grandmother’s bathroom, store-bought shampoo, store-bought conditioner, store-bought hair gel, hair brush, comb, and mirror
Scrap wallpaper from my grandmother’s bathroom, store-bought shampoo, store-bought conditioner, store-bought hair gel, hair brush, comb, and mirror
16’’ embroidery hoop; sewing thread, faux leather, paper and glue
Black Woman, Unbothered
The entirety of this installation was born out of a four-week residency at Roger's Art Loft in the summer of 2022.
My participation in this residency was contingent upon my ability to experience true rest -- unbothered and unapologetic -- for at least the first half of my stay in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Artworks created while in residency include multi-media "relics of rest" in the form of writings and artistic meditations on my own familial lineage and legacy. These relics serve as tangible evidence of the relationship between Black rest and Black joy without demands, expectations, or questions.
This work invites viewers to evaluate their self-expectations amidst the ever-increasing demands of our capitalist society. Additionally, the work serves as an opportunity to reflect on the fact that Black rest is only the bare minimum requirement in the fight for Black liberation.
(Photos by Ash DelGrego and Lance Smith, unless otherwise noted.)
I/We
"Inspired by interviews with Syrian & Iraqi refugees during their first 90 days in Austin, the original i/we was a multimedia concert we made in 2017.
We wanted to explore empathy and listening in an age of polarization. The concert had an amazing cast of international musicians and artists, and won Best New Composition at the Austin Critics Table.
For I/WE 2020, ARCOS, with choreographer Erica Gionfriddo, dancers Bonnie Cox, Ginnifer Joe, Kaitlyn Jones & Oddalys Salcido, along with filmmaker Eliot Gray Fisher, recontextualize the original stories and music through movement filmed in natural spaces around the State of Texas.
Kaitlyn B. Jones explored the second movement, 'I am not afraid'."(Campbell, Angelica. “I/WE 2020.” Austin Classical Guitar, 2020, www.austinclassicalguitar.org/i-we2020/.)
shift(ing), soften(ing)
A Conversation About Latasha Harlins
In collaboration with movement artist Becky Nam, this movement piece explores the complex and nuanced relationship between Asian Americans and Black Americans with a primary focus on the 1991 murder of 15 year-old Latasha Harlins by 51 year-old Korean convenience store owner, Soon Ja Du.
A Conversation about Latasha Harlins premiered at the art studio of John Christensen as a part of the annual 2019 West Austin Studio Tour.
Dope Fit!
Dope Fit! is conjugated from the accidental discovery of 95 Black bodies at a construction site in Sugarland, Texas. After excavation, these bodies were said to be the bodies of freed enslaved Black people, forced to work on sugar plantations after emancipation.
In collaboration with tap dance extraordinaire Michael J. Love and an ensemble of Black artists and thinkers, Dope Fit! utilizes dance, rhythm, music, text and voice to create our own metaphysical Black utopia. Through the mixing of rhythm tap, contemporary choreography, vernacular sounds and shapes, we seek to reclaim lost archives and visceralize freedom.
Dope Fit! premiered as part of the 2019 Cohen New Works Festival at the University of Texas at Austin. An extended version was presented at the Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center in Austin, Texas in September 2019.
Black Being
This exhibition ignites complex conversations about Black exceptionalism and cautions that the phrase “Black Excellence”, when used unironically, perpetuates the false idea that Black normalcy is inadequate, and disregards the inherent value of Black life.
Black Being purposely excludes struggle and oppression as a glorified subject matter of Black-created artworks in favor of an exhibition where Black people can just be. The fifteen Black artists featured in this exhibition explore a wide range of themes that give testament to the extensive ethnography of Black culture.
To read the in-gallery bifold with additional curatorial text, click HERE.
Featured Artists: Abby Oyesam, Amani Lewis, André Ramos Woodard, Basil Kincaid, Brian Ellison, Dawn Okoro, Derrick Adams, glyneisha, Kevin Hopkins, London Pierre Williams, Nehemiah Cisneros, rachel j. atakpa, Ronald Jackson, Tokie Rome Taylor, and William Toney.
On view at Charlotte Street Foundation (Kansas City, MO)
from Nov. 10, 2023 - Jan. 6, 2024
An interactive component to this exhibition included an iteration of Journey to Softness (The Barbershop Series), a performance facilitated by Houston-based artist Brian Ellison.
The performance served as an invitation to receive a haircut, free of charge, in the gallery space. Journey to Softness is a living testament to how the seemingly mundane elements of Black culture are actually foundational ritualistic practices that–when placed in a traditional “white cube” gallery space–offer an alternative idea of what an artistic practice looks like.
Photo by E.G. Schempf
Photo by Lilah Powlas
glyneisha; "Truth and Reconciliation"; 2018; Graphite on Oil Ground on Canvas; 36 x 48 inches; image courtesy of the artist
Photo by E.G. Schempf
Convergence Research
Convergence Research is a collaboration between the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts (CWMCA) and the Blaffer Art Museum. It is a platform for experimentation and research for students and faculty of all artistic disciplines in the McGovern College of the Arts at the University of Houston with the goal of creating more opportunities for connection between the disciplines. Convergence Research supports interdisciplinary inquiry and techniques to stimulate creative process and cultivate works that are performative, temporary and in any stage of process.
Featured Artists: Cat Davila-Martinez, Marley Foster, Veronica Gaona, Zuri Humphrey, Nudo
2021-2022
Photo by Kaitlyn B Jones
Photo by Kaitlyn B Jones
Photo courtesy of CWMCA
Photo by Kaitlyn B Jones