Artist and Curator from Chicago. Owner of Braided magazine, currently in Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design for Graphic Deisgn. She has a passion for community and fmaily, creating fun and engaging enviroments meant to make you feel at home. She also is an avid movie watcher, reader and painter.
As people of color, artists going into the art world we risk being put into environments that don’t reflect us. It can be discouraging seeing how many spaces don’t have others that look like you. A space to come to no matter what field or environment you may be in, that has others that look like you with the same interest is important to stay motivated and driven to excel in any space. To have a safe space to return to as an artist is something we find very important and that’s what we want to provide. Therefore Braided was born.
Creators Contributuon
Jade Thompson
This series is inspired by my personal experiences as a queer, Black Mexican american person attending a predominately white institution. Despite the culture shock, racial, gender/sexuality, and class trauma I was able to create a community with other QTIPOC on campus. It feels like I was able to graduate and literally make it out of Columbia, Missouri alive because of my support system. We all bonded through art, magic, trauma, and self-care. In a place that made me feel othered, they reminded me that I was a human being worthy of tenderness and acceptance. I wanted to depict intimate moments within a fantastical landscape because those actual moments felt like an escape from reality. Being able to heal, support and survive through magical/ancestral reconnection kept me grounded in what I believed in and who I am.
Tavi Unx
unx_ugly(insta)
Tavi Unx is a non-binary, Hispanic artist, currently residing in Wisconsin. Working in a whole realm of different mediums. Their work tells stories of heartache, mental illness, and other personal issues. Titled, “My thoughts follow me” this piece is about over thinking and the anxiety’s that come with it and how they linger.
Ashley Rainge-Shields cha0tic_collage
“The World Is Yours.” It is part of a series, also called The World Is Yours, that explores the ways in which Black people seize ownership over a world that is not built for us. Instead of struggling under its weight, the subjects in my series take hold of the Earth and play with it in different ways. I have made pieces with characters jumping on top of the Earth or straddling it. This particular piece is my favorite. Here we have a man, the epitome of cool, leaning up against the world as he casually smokes a cigarette. I think his strength comes through in his relaxed pose. He laughs in the face of oppression as a flower blooms behind him.
Lightest Ocean in My Eyes
Hair falling down On the chest of my lover.
She greets it with a smile And her laugh fills me up. “Pour into me.”
She does. Inside me, her light bursts. My eyes drip. The ocean leaks out.
And past lovers cease to exist. Only her And only I. Till the sea fills me up, Again.
- Andrea Cayasso
Water Jar
With an invitation
To behold what once was
Like gravel in an unexpectant hand, Memories slip away.
Alone and desiring The familiarity of that edge Plunged so deep in my mind.
Crying out, I remember, So vibrant does it seem To child’s eyes When the raging river Sings Her song so sweet.
Another invitation becomes you. And what child denies The delight of silver pools?
Only those who have sipped On a water jar full of sky.
- Andrea Cayasso
A room dedicated to the furthering of the autonomy of women and their bodies.
Udochukwu Anidobu
Udochukwu Anidobu is a junior at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign majoring in architectural studies. She is an avid reader, writer, artist, hiker and designer and a lover of beautiful things. Beautiful people, art, words, music, buildings, landscapes, you name it. The beauty of the world does not disguise the unfortunate realities that plague the disenfranchised and underrepresented communities. As a young black queer female in a white male dominated field, Udochukwu is very familiar with the ugliness of the world. She is an activist and an advocate for the little guy. As a designer her focus is on the preservation of historic landscapes and traditions of West African nations primarily Nigeria, her home country. Her goal is to preserve the landscapes and stories of African landscapes. She wants to help the world see the value of the continent and to help African nations reclaim their land and rewrite their narratives. Her hope is that the continent can decolonize their mindsets and for them to capitalize on their resources and land to become self-sustaining. In the pursuit to put as much beauty into the world as she can, Udochukwu is planning to pursue a landscape design degree in her graduate studies. But for now, she’s happy to be privileged enough to do the things she loves.
Jasmine Marie
Jasmine Marie (born 1999, Memphis TN) is a photographer, writer, performer, curator and filmmaker whose personal work explores both the mundane and the fantastic of black life with a focus on southern black culture, and spirituality. With a leaning towards speculative fiction and afrosurrealism, she utilizes video, text, and portraiture to explore how the mediums work together to tell stories of love and identity. Her work also explores the connection between queerness, black femme identity, and the role of community through the lens of heritage and space. She currently lives and works in Memphis.
@jasthemarie
I am an artist exploring what it means to reflect through visual communication. I want to break down my humanity, dissect and stich together what is meaningful to me, and discard the rest. It is a meditation and a prayer to make work.
@brunovista on instagram
@brunogoca on twitter
Bruno Vistas
Walking Man In Green, is a study in a figures movement in an environment. This world of grids and pixels which I have created is a place of boundless possibility. It parallels our own world, where everything is relative. Its most characteristic distinction is that nothing is seperate. The man is wholly part of his environment, and so he does not have thought, he only walks ahead.
I strive to dissolve the association of Black bodies with brutality by creating paintings that center Black queer and differently-abled figures connected with nature, abstraction and vibrancy. By portraying Black intersectional identities in this way, I reclaim the multifacetedness of the Black body and create work that is fundamentally about acceptance and empathy. I create physical manifestations of these concepts by painting individuals that are intertwined or literal mirrors of each other. The interwoven positions of my subjects render a presence that bleeds through the thick layers of bright colors appearing to obstruct them. Through combining the realistic and representational in my work, I question how we categorize completion and explore the nuance of human development. Recently, I have been investigating themes of escape, rescue, and liberation in conjunction with my Igbo identity by painting people of my ethnic group in mythical contexts.
I represent Black people in this way because this is how I know us: not defined by harm and death, but by light, color, beauty, and passion.
Marcela Adeze Okeke
Marcela Adeze Okeke is a Chicago artist whose work explores the intimacy of understanding oneself, others, and nature. Okeke has shown in the Museum of Science and Industry, Woman Made Gallery, Arc Gallery, Holy Art Gallery in London, Hairpins Art Center, FOURTUNEHOUSE Art Center and other local and online galleries. Additionally, their work has been published in New American Paintings, North by Northwestern and Blackboard Magazine. Okeke has also done commissioned work for Podlasie Nightclub and Gigi’s Playhouse. You can find their work on their instagram @maoke._
5 Star Recruit
by R.A. Shabazz
Calladita Te Vez mas Bonita
Acrylic on craft paper 2022, 7ftx3ft
This painting is based on a phrase that women especially from the Latinx community have heard. The quieter you are the prettier you are. I exhibited it on my college campus, to get people’s interaction with it, asking for Anonymous submissions of their experiences, of what they wanted to say. who they wanted to tell to FUCK OFF! Incorporating individual submission into being a part of the painting. instagram@requimart
Destiny Brady
Belinda Andrade
This submission is meant to be seen through two phases. They are telling of the same experience but taken from two different perspectives of reality under the pandemic. The first phase was meant to highlight my trip to Oaxaca, Mexico for an internship while also experiencing the first gay love of my life. While the second phase deconstructs living abroad during a pandemic while being in the closet. These two phases are a part of the same experience and are both true but what appeals to people is their choice.
I love this prompt. I try often not to think of myself as making “Black Art”, once I begin to prefix my art, the creative spirit that oftentimes fuels me through blocks and self-doubt begins to slip from my grasp. But whether I prefix my own art or not, once it leaves the realm of personal to public it becomes labeled in ways that make it digestible and algorithm friendly. So there is this constant tightrope walk between being an artist making art and being a black, first generation, female, artist making art for people born into and outside of these same identities. Dimensions of Brown was something I made for myself as a reminder of who I am and who I want to be when I felt like I was entering a new world. The series is split into 3 non-chronological states of being: Passage, Held and Duality//Deliverance.
Passage: The space between who we are and who we will be. It’s the constant transformation and blend of light and dark, understanding and mystery.
Taeya Boi-Doku
