KATES-FERRI PROJECTS ventures into the imperceptible DARK MATTER featuring artists Kevin Claiborne, Turiya Magadlela, Samuel Nnorom, Jamel Robinson, Theda Sandiford, Rudy Shepherd, Jairo Sosa, and Roscoè B. Thické III on view Tuesday, January 10th to Saturday, February 11th, with a reception on Friday, January 13th, 2023. A performance by Rudy Shepherd takes place on Saturday, January 21st, and on Thursday, February 2nd, a special program with Art Noir. 

Dark matter takes up an estimated 25% of the vast universe. It is not observable through the human senses. In the darkness of space, its presence is detected by its interaction with gravity and its mass bending light around it, similar to refracted distortions in water. It is an uncomfortable truth that so much exists in our reality, yet so much is beyond our perception. 

Like light revealing dark matter in space, the artists in the exhibition use the physicality of their work to present unrepresentable realities and experiences. The artists offer a range of engagement, from providing comfort to illustrating society’s harmful, unacknowledged ills that impact groups differently. 

Each artist in DARK MATTER brings personal and systemic concerns to the foreground. By starting with the intangible, the artists render perceptible the dark matter of society. 

Magadlela, Sandiford, Sosa, and Thicke utilize quotidian objects as vehicles to deliver the unseen. In Magadlela’s Failed Ballet Dancer, the black and white stretch pantyhose composition contorts the fabric to demonstrate how women have shaped themselves to fit into society’s expectations of their bodies. “That’s every girl whose 6-year-old dreams were crushed because of bodily flaws… human fragilities and lack of acceptance in the world,” says the artist. Sandiford’s uses bottle caps to scrutinize stereotypes and biases toward Black people in Bottle Cap Pears 2 - 10ft ladder. She cleans, drills, and strings thousands of bottle caps into larger-than-life strings of pearls, thus also transforming its utilitarian function to one of great value. Famous basketball player Lebron James’s Miami Heat (2010-2014) jersey with the red number 6 on white also confers value and significance in an innocuous article of clothing. Sosa’s highly textured paintings of James’s jerseys are part of a larger “2003” series. “These paintings explore personal and collective memory following the movement of black and brown bodies moving through time and space,” says Sosa about his work. Thicke lays an actual metal window grill from his childhood home in Miami, which has since been sold to developers, on top of a photograph of his mother in Irene's Legacy. She is seemingly trapped by her environment, but her regal seated posture, reminiscent of Blair Stapp’s famed 1968 photograph of Black Panther Huey P. Newton on his wicker throne, suggests a more empowered woman. Through their work, the artists subtly ask if the preset paths for women and people of color, like looking fit or being good at sports, are the only way to being valued.  

Claiborne, Robinson, Samuel, and Shepherd’s work provide views into the different stages of one’s healing process from these unspoken, some unseen, and re-remembered traumas. For Claiborne, he mourns and brings awareness to the loss. He says that “the paintings are inspired by the Great Unconformity, a gap of missing time in Earth’s geological record hundreds of millions of years long, and the gaps in my family history that have been erased, lost, or forgotten.” Robinson projects anger in Knot Quite FREE, an almost entirely black painting. “I constructed to visually show a through-line of what freedom has and continues to look like for Blacks in America: backwards.” Samuel’s Burnt Roses illustrates the transformation from the loss of love to moving beyond those strong emotions by wrapping, tying, stitching, and dying Nigerian dirt and burnt roses into bubbles. Splashes of yellow and red point to the joy he now feels of the memory. Last and certainly not least, Shepherd’s Black Rock Negative Energy Absorber aims to heal. As the title suggests, the 6-foot-tall sculpture absorbs negative energy. The show guides visitors through awareness, rightful anger, hopefulness, and healing. None of which could be seen, but each deeply felt. 

Kevin Claiborne: Kevin Claiborne is a multidisciplinary conceptual artist whose work examines intersections of identity, social environment, & mental health within the Black American experience. Moving between collage, silkscreen, photography, painting, and sculpture, while frequently using language as material, Claiborne is interested in finding new ways to look at history and its connection to the present. Claiborne holds a B.S. in Mathematics from the historically Black college North Carolina Central University (2012), an M.S. in Higher Education from Syracuse University (2016), and an MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University (2021).
Claiborne is currently living and working in Harlem, New York City.

Turiya Magadlela: South African artist (b. 1978, Johannesburg, South Africa) works with art making techniques that are traditionally used by women, using sewing and embroidery on various conceptually loaded fabrics, from pantyhose to correctional service uniforms, and creates abstract compositions by cutting, stitching, folding, and stretching these materials across wooden frames.

Samuel Nnorom: (b.1990) is a Nigerian-born visual. He discovered his talent at the age of 9 years while assisting his father in his shoe workshop – where he started making life drawings of customers that visited the shop. He was also influenced by his mother's tailoring workshop –as a kid who played with colorful fabrics with sewing needles and thread. He went further to develop this talent through apprenticeship, training, workshops, exhibitions, art school and practice.

Jamel Robinson: lives and works in Harlem, New York City where he was born and raised. Mr. Robinson is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist working in the mediums of abstract expressionist painting, sculpture, writing, and performance. His work ponders itself alongside maker and audience while serving as a timestamp of the experiences shaping his life and creative practice.  Robinson’s works have gained him notoriety at home and abroad, attracting a variety of prominent collectors. 

Theda Sandiford: Based in Jersey City, NJ. Theda Sandiford is an award-winning self-taught fiber and installation. Using racial trauma as a starting point, Theda juxtaposes various fibers with a variety of found materials using free form weaving, coiling, knotting, crochet, and jewelry making techniques. Meticulously collected materials and community donations, transformed by their collective memory become “social fabric,” weaving together contemporary issues and personal narratives.

Rudy Shepherd: Received an MFA in Sculpture from the School of Art Institute of Chicago. He has been in solo exhibitions at Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, CT, Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA and group exhibitions at MoMA PS1, NY, The Studio Museum in Harlem, NY, Bronx Museum of Art, among others.  His work explores the nature of evil through the mediums of painting, drawing and sculpture. This exploration involves investigations into the lives of criminals and victims of crime. Shepherd examines the complexity of these stories and the grey areas between innocence and guilt in a series of paintings and drawings of both the criminals and the victims, making no visual distinctions between the two.

Jairo Sosa: is a multidisciplinary artist based in New York engaging with elements of popular culture to form unique contemporary social mythologies. In sculptures, paintings, and mixed media installations he incorporates found materials alongside traditional mediums to illuminate the relationship between place and culture. Tackling issues of class systems and race, his work creates a visual vocabulary heavily influenced by sports culture, and more specifically basketball, conveying stories of both hope and tragedy.

Roscoè B. Thické III: (b. 1981) was born and raised in Miami, Florida. After graduating high school Thické enlisted in the US Army to embark on a journey of exploration and transformation. The army provided Thické with the opportunity to see the world via his travels, but it would be a volunteer-based photography class in South Korea, that would take Thické from amateur explorer of culture and customs to the intentional, stirring, and impressive images we see of his work today. Roscoè pursued his passion for visual arts by studying photography and design at Broward College. Thické’s work is centered around the resilience of spirit, affliction of memory, and the art of “seeing”. Roscoè received the 2021 Ellie Schneiderman Creator award and is currently an Artist-In-Residence at Oolite Arts in Miami, Florida. 

Press Release Exhibition Catalogue    Art Works on View: Kevin Claiborne, Turiya Magadlela, Jamel Robinson, Samuel Nnorom, Theda Sandiford, Rudy Shepherd, Jairo Sosa, and Roscoè B. Thické III Available Works on Artsy Available Works on ArtLand Exhibition on YouTube