Chop Shop Artists launch 'We Are Here' exhibit at Gantt Center

CHOP SHOP ARTISTS COLLECTIVE

Jalen Jackson, a member of the Chop Shop Artists Collective, paints a mural. The collective will debut its collaboration "We Are Here" at the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture on May 23.

Black artists are collaborating to share their experiences and realities. 

The Chop Shop Artists Collective, made up of Black and brown artists and educators from across the nation, will debut its first exhibition, “We Are Here” at The Harvey B. Gantt Center on May 23 from 6-9 p.m. The exhibit will remain on display through Oct. 26.

Founded in 2020, the collective’s goal is to unify Black artists from across the U.S. They gather monthly.

“We as a group of Black and brown artists wanted to be collaborative, we wanted to be supportive to each other, our whole idea is community,” he said. “I heard someone recently on a podcast say that community breaks into two words: common unity.”

Cozart said many of the Chop Shop artists have a range of experience with the arts and education, which provides a safe space to evoke questions and ideas in a supportive space. The exhibition title is meant to represent the Black presence in a variety of topics including voter rights for African Americans by Kevin Cole and Afro-kitsch by Charlotte native Bryan Wilson.

Wilson said the exhibition name is meant to display the strength of the Black and brown presence, now and in the future.

“What is the Black presence beyond the moment?” he asked. “What is our presence in the future? It doesn’t have to be one of struggle, or constantly rehashing the same tales of oppression, but expressing endurance, excellence, love and the list goes on.” 

Wilson’s art focuses on Afro-kitsch, meant to be a derogatory term to represent imitated, lower-quality art and making the argument that innovative ideas are everywhere.

“There’s always more than meets the eye,” he said. “If you’re creating a narrative, the more you sit with something, even with movies, you think you know everything, but when you watch it again, it’s like ‘Oh, I didn’t notice that.’”

Roymieco Carter, associate professor of graphic design at North Carolina A&T State University, said the complexities of the Black experience can be found in the past, present and future.  According to Carter’s website, his art presents the illogical obsession and narrative that has been created over time with human control and suppression of others, such as enslavement and the Middle Passage. He compares the Chop Shop to the hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan in terms of individuality as artists but also as a group.

“We’re not trying to become each other, we’re not trying to copy each other, we’re not references for each other,” Carter said. “Everybody stands in their own thing, and we understand the power of our own voices when we come together.”

The collective has 16 members that cover a variety of topics regarding Black experiences. Carter said the message he wants people to take away from the exhibition is for growth to occur, people need to live in the uncomfortable aspects that symbolize the complexity of the Black American experience. 

“Don’t try to simplify your world, don’t try to simplify your life,” he said. “Learn to be comfortable in those complexities.”

On the Net:
www.ganttcenter.org/exhibitions/chop-shop

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