Rowe Gallery is pleased to host my sun is black as the glowing sea by night, an exhibition featuring new work by Johannes Barfield. The work was commissioned by UNC Charlotte College of Arts + Architecture Director of Galleries, Adam N. Justice, with curation and creative direction by Justin Smith, founder/curator of Afrovisualism, and will be on view through March 21. Watch the trailer to the 30-minute film19th ACT (2022) that plays in the exhibition over loudspeakers.
Johannes Barfield and Justin Smith will present a virtual lecture via Zoom on Feb 9 at 6 p.m. Get the Zoom link here.
Barfield is an American sample-based visual artist who works in installation, video, photography, mixed-media, and sound. His work explores childhood memories, joy, appropriation as a means for survival, the repatriation of artifacts, objecthood, extinction, and the music played at family cookouts.
A native of Winston-Salem, Barfield resides now in New Mexico. He received an MFA in Photography and Film from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) and a BFA in New Media and Design from UNC Greensboro. He has received multiple awards, fellowships, and residencies, including the 2020 Mint Museum Atrium Health “Best in Show” award, Toby Devan Lewis Fellowship (Chicago, 2018), Merriweather District AIR (Columbia, MD, 2020), Fine Arts Work Center visual artist fellowship (Provincetown, MA, 2020), Lighthouse Works Fellowship (Fisher Island, NY, 2019), ACRE residency (Steuben, WI, 2018), MASS MoCA residency (North Adams, MA, 2018), and a VCU “10 Under 10” award that recognizes noteworthy and distinct achievements made by VCU alumni.
Smith is a graphic designer, curator, researcher, and writer from Richmond, Virginia. He is the founder and curator of Afrovisualism, his brand, platform, and practice on Black Visual Culture in which he contextualizes the advancement of Black creative expression. Through his immersive research practice of “crate-digging,” he theorizes the sampling and study of Black aesthetic continuums.