ART FROM THE QUARANTINE | WEEK NINE | SAY SOMETHING
LUKE GRAY
Afro Flores
Ink on paper
100cm x 200cm
Ideologies
Acrylic on canvas
60cm x 100cm
British artist Luke Gray is a perpetual traveller and multimedia fine artist specializing in surrealist paintings and large scale augmented reality murals. Born color blind he was forced to use an almost exclusively monochrome palette, working with patterns and textures rather than color.
Growing up mixed race in a multicultural family, since childhood he had an interest in different cultures and began to explore ethnography and world travel. Early in his career he lived in abandoned buildings in London’s squatting community and would make money busking by drawing on the street with chalk in Trafalgar square. In 2013 he started an 8 year journey of hitchhiking around the world painting murals for hostels and bars to support himself, collecting influences and techniques as he traveled.
JAI LENNARD
Allow me to share some personal truths, via new work, that I hope remind you we all have work to do
My very first mentors made it clear to me that if I were to venture down the path of commercial and editorial photography, I could not shoot too many Black people because it would stifle my career. That may surprise you but let me add the fact that these people were also Black and ran an African American focused ad agency that was very successful at the time. They were protecting me and were right to do so. A few years later I would work as creative consultant and see those photographers with too many Black subjects get stuck. Many editors and art buyers of that time, and even now, believe that Black photographers only have a range within Black subjects.
Fast forward a decade or so and I now finally find myself getting the opportunities I've always wanted, having barely shot any Black subjects and also muting my Blackness, somehow now getting offered jobs where 9 out of 10 times, my subject is Black. Oh, the irony! Added to this, my clients also see me as someone who tells stories of marginalized groups, which I love. I'm grateful, but talk about mental gymnastics––I love my people but am trained to stay away until White people say it's where I belong, all the while I deeply want to uplift our stories. Being mad for being hired to do a job you want to do because you're the person who should do it, is a sickness that was born out of "White Rage"––that's the title of a book you should read by Carol Anderson.
Well now it's Covid-Murder-Hornet-Race-War-Pocalypse and the revolution is here. On the day George Floyd was murdered I was with Marjon Carlos (pictured here) in Brooklyn, NY getting a second chance at embracing my Blackness with her, a feat much too hard for me 10 years prior when we first met. She was a sales rep at Helmet Lang, and I was looking for a job that they would later offer me and I'd refuse. We would hang out once as friends and over the next decade be in each others peripheral, but that’s all. Growing up in a White community would make loving myself and Black women, really difficult but I’m now realizing it’s part of my journey.
I'd like to believe my intentions define me. Yes, I'm Black and hetero but I also identify deeply with the women in my life. Women, sex workers, the LGBTQI community and many other groups who can usually be picked out of a crowd, but are also essentially marginalized. I find deep gratitude in amplifying these voices. I think power is often seen as masc-only and I find power in giving up pieces of myself by uplifting others-–mainly through my photography.
Marjon Carlos is someone who oozes Black power. Doing this session was nothing short of spiritual for me. Marjon is a voice of our past, present and future all bundled up into a loving, but no bullshit, package that many would deem as Auntie. She carries her ancestors with her, living in the now, speaking in ways many of us aren't ready for yet but should take on eagerly. She's a writer of extreme gifts, having graced the pages of Vogue, Vanity Fair, The Gloss, Essence and many more. She's a writer focused on racial bias but is often fighting the powers that be in fashion. She provides us all with clarity that is necessary in a time like this. This is her journey.
Part of the reason I tell my story and how I've intertwined with Marjon over a decade of NYC living is that I'm starting to deeply understand and resonate in this path. My Blackness is a journey and it takes shape depending on time, space and what I would like to believe is my will to overcome. When I look back at the advice that bread self doubt, I think, this also made me. Decisions I made in fear, mistakes I didn't want to let go, and people who wanted to keep me back––all apart of it.
Right now I feel a collective shift in consciousness. People are realizing that the terms are not the same, they didn't know much before and advice that many mentors gave were of another era that is not only long gone, but painful and traumatic. I think it's good to be reminded that we're all on a long journey and participating is paramount. We want answers and it's easy to ask the person closest to you but maybe you should really listen to your own heart. Listen to your gut. We all need to get to the similar place right now, but it's not gonna happen all at once. Be responsible for yourself and those closest to you. Remember you are not the same person you were yesterday.
These images I've shared mean a lot to me. It's a representation of a shift in my work hurtling towards something more open, more me. I'm feeling more confident as a photographer. I'm normally not in a space to embrace my ego but I'm trying to teach myself how Black love and self love work together. I'm learning from people like Marjon. I love that they're of her. . . . she's simply magic and I want to amplify voices and faces that matter. Our Black Lives Matter.
