Aaron Caldwell

Lives and works in Normal, IL, USA

Artist statement

I explore my personal and communal connection to how we define, describe and perform ourselves. My art works from the lens of my lived Black and gay experience. I create my own lexicon for storytelling inspired by global folklore and anthropomorphism. Each animal represents a human quality, physical or social, and is adorned with material representing Black culture. I am fascinated by the human desire to not only create language to describe the complexities of our lived experiences, but also historically and contemporarily use animals as a medium to express those complexities through storytelling. My art serves as a visual narrative for these lived experiences. The primary narrative is about the complex and necessary relationship Black Americans have with moisturizing products such as lotion or Vaseline (petroleum jelly), seemingly mundane objects that hold much value in our culture. I, then, layer this important experience with animals representative of cultural and social qualities such as the buffalo representing masculinity, the gazelle representing femininity, sheep representing queerness, the goat representing the acronym deriving from Hip Hop culture ‘Greatest Of All Time’, the rabbit representing nappy hair and the hybrid gazelle and buffalo representing butch queens. I create this body of art as a way to better understand and frame my lived experiences through these two identities, Black and gay, and offer an experience of visibility, curiosity, and learning for a...

Artwork