Dominic Chambers

Many of the themes I deal with in my current work stem from my personal history and my love for literature. Reading, in my opinion, is the best way to enhance one’s imagination. The relationship between reality and imagination is crucial in my current studio practice. I am interested in creating a pictorial environment for black men that embraces imagination and accepts vulnerability as a part of manhood.

As man of color, I create my works as a means to negotiate my relationship with my heritage, American history, background, and masculinity. Within other works, I explore my relationship to the social construct of the veil as articulated by W.E.B. Dubois. My growing fascination with presence and absence results in a series of abstract paintings that utilize the silhouette of the body, in addition to various visual elements that obscure it’s legibility. As a man of color, I create these works to facilitate a conversation about how societal constraints result in the erasure of possibility for black masculinity, gender performance and an ambivalence of manhood as it relates to the larger paradigm of American society.