JUSTIN TYLER BRYANT:

FOR ME TO STAY HERE, I GOT TO BE ME

Oct 1 - 31, 2024

FIRST WEDNESDAY OPENING: Oct 2 FROM 6 - 9PM

ARTICULATE ARTIST TALK: SUNDAY, Oct 20, AT 4PM.

NORMAL GALLERY HOURS: TUE - SUN, 12PM - 6PM

FOLLOW US AT BRGALLERY FOR UPDATES AND IMAGES!

Born in Stuttgart AR., Justin Bryant received his BFA in Studio Art from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 2012 and his MFA in Studio Art from Louisiana State University in 2018 and was a participant at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (’17).

Justin’s recent work investigates the past and present imagery of African Americans to reflect a multi-contextual narrative of poetry, personal narrative, and history. In his work, he uses found objects, painting, drawing, and video to suggest a fugitive notion of blackness. He looks to call-and-response, poetry, and various forms of communication as a protective sensibility. He recontextualizes familiar media such as drawings, paintings, prints, performances, and videos. These acts find themselves, as theorist Brent Hayes Edwards puts it (referring to African diasporic poetics), “unmade and redone at every turn.” He’s interested in these “unmade and redone” components as an evolving potentiality that suspends notions of Blackness into a space that does not fetishize critique. Rather, the existence of the work posits the understanding of Blackness as something that is not always revealed on the surface of things.

For me to stay here, I got to be me:
Is a series of paintings that reflect on Black fugitivity and cosmology.
Is a series of paintings that understands the lesser of two evils is evils = lesser in that it is evil, just not as much as the original amount of evil.
Is a series of paintings NOT about Justin Tyler Bryant… well maybe inadvertently they are about Justin Tyler Bryant.
Is a series of paintings that use watercolor, gauche, marker, and graphite.
Is a series of paintings that are BLIGGATY BLIGGATY BLACK BLACK!! In terms of their origin.
Is a series of paintings that are like a black hole; you are standing at the event horizon.
Is a series of paintings that are outside even when they are inside.
Is a series of paintings that are slick on some Sun Ra sh*t.
Is a series of paintings that give a f**k about Black people.
Is a series of paintings that are woke but do not want you to describe them that way.
Is a series of paintings that do a lot for Justin Tyler Bryant but do absolutely nothing for you unless you meet them halfway.
Is a series of paintings that use a multifaceted aesthetic approach to show a multitude of Black modalities as to say that we are multidimensional, ontologically bountiful, and quasi quasar like; as it is believed that a quasar is the brightest star and contains massive black holes.

Justin is currently a full-time instructor at the Philander Smith University and is a 2019 Interchange Artist Fellow for the Mid-America Arts Alliance.

This exhibition is on view alongside works from three of our other artist members: Jeremiah Ariaz, Lauren Cardenás, and Kristine Thompson. All works from these artists are on view, free of charge, during regular gallery hours (12 - 6 p.m., Tue - Sun) from Oct 1 - 31, 2024.