{"id":10259,"date":"2021-09-16T13:25:43","date_gmt":"2021-09-16T13:25:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/media-archive.blackartinamerica.com\/?p=10259"},"modified":"2021-09-16T17:26:38","modified_gmt":"2021-09-16T17:26:38","slug":"future-lore-of-blackness-nyame-brown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/earthexhibitions.org\/media-archive\/?p=10259","title":{"rendered":"Future Lore of Blackness: Nyame Brown"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
[Originally posted on ReRiddle.com]\r\n
September 1\u00a0\u2013 30, 2021<\/strong> 1632 Market Street<\/strong> Can the imagined alternate-realities of science-fiction make room for a more just present? How might the cultural boundaries of society\u2019s past and present be dilated into new stratospheres? Future Lore of Blackness <\/em>offers work by Nyame Brown which deploys fantasy and science fiction as a strategy to elevate Black communities. His paintings utilize the formal structure of a\u00a0traditional\u00a0art historical narrative with Afrosurreal aesthetics,\u00a0resulting in contemporary history paintings of the Black future.<\/p>\r\n The wrinkle-in-time effect of Brown\u2019s paintings is enhanced by their fantastic circumstances: aspirational interstellar superheroes, video game gods\/goddesses, and technicolored therianthropes navigating both familiar and unfamiliar architectures. By using Renaissance and Baroque compositional techniques to tell stories of the African diaspora, American folklore, and contemporary hip hop culture, Brown usurps Western patriarchal power structures to introduce new ways of social transformation and paradigms of equity.<\/p>\r\n Brown\u2019s work moves the realm of Afrofuturism\u2014considered to be the largest interdisciplinary movement since the Harlem Renaissance\u2014even further forward, manifesting the African diaspora and Black culture at the center of a technically-advanced and radically just civilization. Regularly situating his characters at the center of his\u00a0compositions, and guiding the viewer towards the protagonist(s) through converging, perspective planes, Brown underscores the significance of storytelling and whose<\/em>stories are told.<\/p>\r\n His narrative-building takes an idiosyncratic turn in modelling physically impossible architectonic surroundings and medium-shifting swaths of sketches to underscore the intentionality of our built environments, breaking the illusion of artifice and curated narratives. Brown recasts archetypal art historical gestures with the swag of urban hip hop culture. For example, the piercing cerulean floor plane edge and extending high-top sneaker heel in Galo Canto,<\/em> echoes Caravaggio\u2019s iconic illusion-shattering details, like the picture plane puncturing elbow of Saint Nicodemus in his Deposition<\/em>. Brown\u2019s character\u2019s comportments create their own visual lexicon similar to the classical contrapposto (In the Forge of Crackniculous<\/em>), seductive Odalisque, and empowered Vitruvian man (Black Humor<\/em>). His works are richly layered with symbolic infusions of Black street fashion, martial arts, folklore symbolism and garish pop culture.<\/p>\r\n
Opening Reception: Friday, September 3\u00a0from 4-7pm<\/strong><\/p>\r\n
San Francisco, CA 94102
Wednesday – Sunday, 11am-6pm<\/strong>
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