CORPORAL RENEWAL | SITES OF MEMORY | HISTORY IN THE MAKING
TUXEDO Residency
A Man Named Red, 2023, Los Angeles, oil and mixed- media on canvas, 4' x 6'
For the first time after nearly a decade, Khaleb Brooks lived and worked in the US with the Tuxedo Residency programme. Based in Los Angeles, they explored their personal relationship to the politics of blackness and its implications on mental health in the American context. Rooted in a passion for storytelling these works expose the impact of internalised racism and the historical imagery attached to it.
A Man named Red features a life size self- portrait foregrounding the shredded pages of a sample voting ballot while Brooks holds a fishing pole. Several other works explore Saidiya Hartman’s “violence of abstraction”, visualising the subtle mania that happens when someone is written out of the archive. These works along with others offer insight into the artists process of grappling with familial disconnects, generational colorism, their personal connections to the slave trade and the many ways black masculinity is perceived globally.
Oshun's Antidote to Psychosis, 2023, Los Angeles, oil and acrylic on canvas, 4' x 6'
Tuxedo
Residency
Oshun's Antidote to Psychosis explores the expectation of young black men to mitigate difficulties in mental health whilst being subjugated to state violence. A blackface sculpture inspired by David Levanthal’s “Blackface” photographs symbolizes internalized racism, a skeletal dove offers peace and freedom while the sunflower’s at the bottom of the work offer ancestral ties to the Yoruba god of Oshun.
The Devil Within, 2023, Los Angeles, oil and mixed- media on canvas, 4' x 6'
This work explores facing violence while still grieving. It features an American flag dragged through dirt and concrete, the embroidered names of high profile murders by the police and a black face figurine looming and grinning. The work acknowledges the ways racism is woven into our history and national identity.
