Cudelice Brazelton IV

Lives and works in Rotterdam, Netherlands

Artist statement

The work of Cudelice Brazelton IV incorporates painting, collage, sculpture, sound, installation, and objecthood to explore the material phenomena found in urban space. The relationship between the body and hardware lies at the forefront of the work. Using techniques of tearing, piercing, and reconstruction, images are transferred and burned with soldering irons. The scarring effects on the walls of exhibition spaces act as temporary wounds or tattoos for the space itself or another substrate. Brazelton collects denim sheets used from the wall branding practice as a personal archive. Recently the work has expanded to utilize the scorched denim membranes as building material engaging in architectural space. What started as a collection of images from street corners of barbershop and Black cosmetic imagery became more like an ephemeral burned trace. Dark acrylics, objects and magnetic paint cover printed images of figures oscillating between steel and general warehouse workers or skidded paintings that render a trace of a figure or background. The work often operates in a dark space, combining an industrial labor background from the American South and Midwest with interpretations of theatre in German Expressionism. The influences from a life in Frankfurt for seven years adds a bureaucratic form like cellulose-latex paintings mimicking stacked briefcases or a mock invitational letter with a wax seal of embossed teeth. The body in the work is often compressed. The works are...

Artwork