Chuma Adam

Audacity

This body of work is largely informed by Édouard Glissant’s theory on opacity in his acclaimed book, Poetics of Relation. When speaking about opacity in relation to my work, I think of being opaque. Visible, but indescribable. 

The Right to Opacity as a body of work challenges themes of visibility, the Black identity and Blackness that is often consumed as raw material and as aesthetic objects for those who fetishize Black pain and trauma. In my work, I work through the emotions of being constantly othered while navigating through a world that is ultimately built for my demise. While doing so, the abstraction of these thoughts and feelings onto the surface acts as a partition between myself and the viewer. 

The opacity serves to identify the worlds between our perceptions, needs and readings of experience. The viewer is immersed in their own thoughts and feelings, subjecting their emotions onto the painting. The meaning this work carries goes beyond my attachments to the painting but as a starting to go beyond any set expectations.