BIPOC artists get deserved recognition
Look beyond major galleries for Black art.
On Canada Day, a group of 16 artists gathered in Kensington Market to produce a colourful street mural, each painting a letter of “Black Lives Matter” on Augusta Street in their own unique style.
For some passersby, this may have been their first encounter with work by local Black artists. While more people are examining the books on their shelves and the TV shows they stream for anti-Black racism, visual arts consumption is often ignored.
For those who want to start buying Black art but don’t know where to start, we asked four curators for their advice.
Check out alternative spaces and you might find the next star. If it hadn’t been for COVID-19, this would have been the third year that freelance photographer and videographer Tiana Smith curated a Pride month show at 187 Augusta dedicated to artists who “push the boundaries of society by existing and creating their art as 2SQTBIPOC.”
Smith, a stylist who always has a camera in tow, credits the show with opening up opportunities for her own portrait photography at larger venues like the ROM.
“When I look around, other than Church Street, I haven’t really seen a lot of queer Black people being able to take up space and sharing their work in a way that isn’t tokenizing them or making them feel small,” says Smith. “I’m really proud of the way my work showcases women of colour and other people who aren’t of the norm. When I’m able to showcase queer folks and what they actually look like, I’m advocating for more representation for queer people.”
Keosha Love’s spoken word practice, poetry and art curation intersects with her work as an activist and as the founder of Our Women’s Voices, which aims to create safe spaces for marginalized women through community. The recent Ryerson University grad has already appeared in several major brand campaigns by the likes of Nike and Absolut, who have recognized Love’s multi-faceted work.
Love recommends that, before taking a trip to a major gallery, people spend time online seeking out artists through their websites and Instagram.
“Most don’t have the liberty of getting a gallery showcase; those things are privileges that not all BIPOC artists have,” says Love, using the acronym for Black, Indigenous and people of colour. “Try searching up some local BIPOC artists and go to their websites. It’s the best way to support them.”
Love’s advice is backed by numbers. Recently, Palestinian-Canadian artist Ibrahim Abusitta published a spreadsheet on Instagram in which he tallied the number of artists who are Black, Indigenous or persons of colour represented by Toronto commercial galleries.
Of the 18 galleries surveyed, only 11 of the 454 artists Abusitta counted are Black. Some of those artists are dead.
This abysmal number was not a surprise to John Samuels (a.k.a. rapper Just John), artistic director of the arts coalition Blank Canvas, which won a $20,000 Toronto Arts Foundation Award last year for its work with marginalized youth. While much of the public discussion right now is centred around anti-Black racism in specific cultural institutions and the systems that have kept artists’ work out of galleries and collectors’ hands, Samuels believes it’s time to think bigger. He sees an opportunity to completely reinvent the art world, top to bottom, including how art is purchased. “People who want to buy Black artists’ work also need to reimagine how they’re supporting artists and how they’re supporting Black communities,” he says.
Samuels suggests investigating grassroots arts organizations like Blank Canvas, the Black Legal Action Centre or the Nia Centre for the Arts, which just announced plans to build Canada’s first multidisciplinary centre for African-Canadian art.
“I think it’s really about having willingness to learn and educate yourself because if you don’t know who the artist is, or where this artwork is coming from or the rootedness of it, it’s out of sight, out of mind,” Samuels says.
Artist and curator James Hewitt understands that, for many people, walking into a commercial gallery and asking about artworks can be an intimidating experience. The OCAD University grad cut his teeth at various spaces, including stints assisting Paul Petro and beloved late Parkdale gallerist Katharine Mulherin, immersing himself in all aspects of the business. Hewitt is now preparing to open his own gallery, the Run, this month in the Runnymede and Annette neighbourhood.
Together with his business partner, photographer Michael Jewer, Hewitt envisions a space that makes people feel at ease.
He selected his initial stable of Black and Indigenous artists — many of whom he’s exhibited with in the past — for their “dynamic perspectives and ideas.”
Hewitt, whose own expressive figurative charcoal drawings will also be exhibited at the gallery, recommends that new collectors start small with original works.
“Build patronage with the artists that you admire. If you can, try to build a friendship or relationship,” says Hewitt. “Try to have real conversations with them so that it takes some mythology away from the artist and it makes them less intimidating. You can learn a lot about their work just through talking.”
Here are five artists to start your search: Jacquie Comrie Dubbed the queen of colour, Comrie’s vivid geometric murals and canvases make you f eel good, t hanks t o her grounding research on the healing power of colour on mental well-being. Website: jacquiecomrie.com Patrick Lightheart A perennial favourite at the annual SNAP Toronto photo auction, Lightheart’s awardwinning digitally manipulated cityscapes suggest a stylistic Metropolis and pure escapism. Website: patricklightheart.com Oreka James One of Hewitt’s favourite artists, James’s paintings and prints focus on the complex experiences of Black female-identifying people and their bodies. One to watch, their painting appeared on the cover of Canadian Art less than two years after they graduated from OCAD U. Instagram: #orekajames Cozy DQ Smith is a fan of Cozy DQ’s striking portrait photography, her fundraising images of the Black Lives Matter protests and her partnership with fellow artist Vonny Lorde on the Exposure Toronto Studio Fund project to support emerging artists. Instagram: @cozydq Adeyemi Adegbesan Samuels urges people to check out the powerful Afrofuturistic portraits of Adegbesan, a.k.a. Yung Yemi, one of which recently made an appearance in the background of Usher’s video for “Don’t Waste My Time.” Website: yungyemi.com