Artist Statement

My work celebrates the inherent matrilineal nature of Blackness through mixed media collage assemblage, multisensory installation, and techniques of Afro-botany. I present narratives that position refuge as place through the nostalgia of Black interiors I have called home and include objects that have been passed down to me from my mother and grandmother to honor the power of Black femme tradition and ritual. 

In the same way that Black culture is found, pieced back together, and transformed; my work takes on the same mending notion with the use of collage through colorful marked papers, graphite, and installation components that are also borrowed, gifted, found, and made anew.  

The textures in my work are intentional and specific, including mark making frottage methods from family heirlooms, the body and hair, local foraged plants, and objects of  Black cultural significance. Those marks are translated and enlarged for my graphite work. Through graphite, I explore collage in reference to atmosphere- giving myself the permission to define emotion and experience through shadow, light, and tone. 

While intimate and personal, the rebirth and recounting of these interiors is also an act of disruption. The inclusion of the Black interior within art institutions and settings that often benefit from the eraser and displacement of Black and Indigenous folk is an opportunity to confront and amend that history. By highlighting the desolate truths and overt absences within the places I’ve called home, I hope to cultivate space for shared healing and refuge while making space for seeing and being seen.

Bio

glyneisha is a poly-discliplinary artist, educator, and community care taker archiving the inherent healing nature of matrilineal Blackness through processes of ethical collaboration informed by Black feminist scholarship.

She organizes workshops, spaces for communal reflection, produces publications, living archives, installation and exhibition work examining the public and private experiential nature of the Black Interior as a source of refuge, healing, and imagination. 

She is co-founder of Strange Fruit Femmes, a Black and Brown femme lead collective that provides free programming for youth and adults centering transformative healing through the arts. 

glyneisha is a 2020 Charlotte St Award Fellow and recipient of the 2020 Bryon C. Cohen Award. She has exhibited, presented, and been in residence at Art Omi, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Juanita J. Craft residency, The Nerman Museum for Contemporary Art, SCAD Museum of Art, Springfield Museum of Art, Springfield Museum of Art, and more.