Grace Lynne Haynes

Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, USA

Artist statement

In my practice I utilize bold palettes and mystic forms to tell the fabulatory stories of Black women past, present, and spiritual while reimagining a post-temporal world through a feminine lens. Rooted in the rich lineage of Black American art history my work draws on the tradition of collage not only as a medium, but as a metaphor. I piece together different fragments from magazines, photography, and textured paper from our old world to reclaim fragmented histories and reconstruct new meanings. Through figuration I investigate how the world building process can become a zone of cultural liberation that addresses racism, sexism and ecological issues by exploring new possibilities for our planet. I fluidly shift between fantasy and reality utilizing the imaginative strategies of science fiction and Afro-Futurism to envision alternative futures for people of African descent. The semiotic visual language in my paintings emerges from lived spiritual experiences, West African folklore, Afro-Futurist philosophies, and Abrahamic references. The first chapter of this series is titled "The Sea is the Only Highway" chronicling a futuristic water realm where the protagonists are spiritual beings that exercise domain through movement and dancing. In this mythological narrative the ocean serves as the entry point for these mystical beings to enter our world. Their arrival incites a rapture of our current world and a new future and unruly elsewhere begins to take shape. I reference...

Artwork