Dana Robinson

Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, USA

Artist statement

Through the scrambling of references I collect from popular vintage printed material like Ebony magazines I address the contradictions inherent in being human. This pop media leaves little room for deviation away from a cis hetero patriarchal middle class lifestyle but I also find comfort in a such a pro-black publication that I see important parts of my history reflected in. Using the aspirational Huxtable-esque images of Blackness, I create a world that can exist outside this ridgid idea of success and consumption. The magazine's figures are used in place of personal photos to preserve the privacy of myself and the people I love. The people in these publications have consented to the reproduction and sale of their images whereas my family has not. In opposition to the entitlement many have to the private moments in Black peoples lives I only work with artificial moments of intimacy. Always a reproduction, never an original, but always searching for the delicacy of life underneath the models' casual glances into the camera. Globs of paint make monoprints of blurred figures bringing an individualistic humanity to the people that were once props used to sell clothes or cigarettes. The collages made from these advertisements are cut down to almost unrecognizable images that dissolve into flashes of skin and color, making a cohesive atmosphere that gently circulates. In the banality of the content is the intensely personal that reveals without giving everything away. Robinson...

Artwork