Freddie Rankin II

Lives and works in New York, NY

Artist statement

Since my days as a young adult, I rarely saw positive affirmations of people of color. Those that I did see were the anomalies that were supposed to represent the whole. It wasn’t until my mid 20’s that I began to question why that was. My curiosity would lead me to places where I would be the only person who looked like me, thought the way I did, or even shared a similar background. It was at that moment I began to document my experiences and the ideas that would manifest themselves. Using lens based processes as my visual medium, I’ve been afforded the opportunity to articulate my thoughts, desires, and reality as an African American male in a cross-cultural world. My work serves as a composite self-portrait that explores relationship structures within the African diaspora and how they influence the ideal self. There’s a perception that African Americans don’t travel. There is truth in it, but that truth is connected to a deeper topic. The vignettes I create are simply characteristics of modern life that are both infinite and ephemeral. These lens based works are both signifiers of thought as well as moments in time, neither fethisizing a single image, cropping, or even a particular selection. Without this context, one would only know the world that the photograph depicts and not the world in which it represents. I am interested in formulating new ideas and streams of consciousness by granting the viewer access to discover new aspects each time they view a piece. The use...

Artwork