Telltale Glowings
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| Drawn Between Worlds |
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| Desensitized Playtime |
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| New Forest Growth |
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| Bury What Matters |
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| Disillusioned Nostalgia |
by
Tom Wachunas
“For some people…Monsters are walking, breathing entities
who inspire fear and hatred…African American men have been perceived as a
monster… My created works reclaim the semblance of my humanity. Racist
connotations are placed on children at birth, who come to accept these negative
biases attributed to them through popular culture, media, and the nightly news.
What I sought was to find the everyday joy that these monstrous entities
partake in…To me, Black joy is positive moments within the mundane, when we
forget about the crushing realities surrounding us and experience happiness in
the small things…Through my work, I have woven a narrative that sets the stage
for my Black Frankenstein… -
excerpted from the exhibiting artist statement by Dadisi Curtis Jr.
EXHIBIT: Tales
of Mundane Black Joy – work by Dadisi Curtis Jr. / at the
William J. & Pearl F. Lemmon Visiting Artist Gallery and The MJ and Pat
Albacete Gallery, located in the Fine Arts building, Kent State University
Stark Campus – 6000 Frank Avenue NW, North Canton, Ohio / through April 30,
2025 / final day for viewing on Wednesday, April 30, 11a.m. to 5p.m.
https://studiodadisi.com/ https://canvasrebel.com/meet-dadisi-curtis-jr/
Mea maxima culpa for another terribly late
review. Still, I simply want to go on ARTWACH record as being thoroughly
stunned by my first-time encounter with the extraordinary visions offered by
artist Dadisi Curtis Jr. He’s a photographer and printmaker who teaches
printmaking at Kent State University main campus.
The art gallery is darkened, yet glowing. The
place feels like a cinema auditorium when all the house lights are turned off
and the only visible light emanates directly from the movie screen (or in this gallery
setting, from many individual photographic screen prints on fabric or paper). It’s
an exhibit of figurative scenes that radiate an immersive ultraviolet aura. The
eeriedescence of blacklight imbues all
them with the glaring intensity of electrified, otherworldly color, along with
an ethereal, sometimes creepy theatricality. In most of the depictions, African
American men wear hoody-type masks, seemingly clawed, scratched and otherwise
adorned with toothy snarls or lurid grins. Do these pictures constitute an
ill-luminated narrative about threatening, maleficent beings?
Indeed,
as the artist tells us in his lengthy statement, it’s “…a narrative that
sets the stage for my Black Frankenstein.” His statement for this exhibit is
itself a compelling story, woven through with a brave spirit of confession. At
one point he describes, with a disarming sense of fondness, his memories of
stealing bicycles with his neighborhood friends: “During this difficult
period of my life, I found small joy not in the act itself but in the
bonds between myself and those who I was with. At the time we embodied that
notion of future predators; little monsters running through the night…”
Bicycles and their riders appear in several
works, but nowhere more arrestingly than in the sprawling installation work
called Drawn Between Worlds. A cruel parody, a scorching satire? In this
haunting light, that supposedly monstrous bike rider – that feared masked
marauder, that predatory miscreant in the night - has become a chained prisoner.
Chained to the sheer corruptibility of distorted, biased societal assumptions
and flawed perceptions.
I think that at the heart of this impressive
exhibit is an implied, sobering and
deeply probing inquisition. Its most potent conceptual thrust springs from an
urgent question: Who, or what, is the real monster that so deftly
continues to color the ethos of our divisive culture?
Thank you, Dadisi Curtis Jr., for your
courage in asking it.
