Background
Tschabalala Self was born in 1990, in Harlem, New York City, New York, United States.
Tschabalala Self
Tschabalala Self
Tschabalala Self
Tschabalala Self
Tschabalala Self
Tschabalala Self
Tschabalala Self
Tschabalala Self
Tschabalala Self
30 Campus Rd, Annandale-On-Hudson, NY 12504, United States
In 2012, Self received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Bard College.
1156 Chapel St, New Haven, CT 06511, United States
In 2015, Self attained a Master of Fine Arts degree in Painting and Printmaking from the Yale School of Art.
Tschabalala Self was born in 1990, in Harlem, New York City, New York, United States.
In 2012, Self received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Bard College. Later, in 2015, she attained a Master of Fine Arts degree in Painting and Printmaking from the Yale School of Art.
Since 2015, Tschabalala has had a number of solo exhibitions, including "Tschabalala Self: Out of Body", at Thierry Goldberg Gallery, New York City (2015), "Tschabalala Self: Gut Feelings", at Thierry Goldberg Gallery, New York City (2016), "Tschabalala Self: Bodega Run", at Pilar Corrias Gallery, London, United Kingdom (2017), "Tschabalala Self: Bodega Run", at Yuz Museum, Xuhui, Shanghai, China (2018), "Tschabalala Self: Out of Body", at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (ICA), Boston, Massachusetts, the United States (2020), and others.
Besides, the artist's works were presented in different group exhibitions, held at various museums and galleries, including the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York City (2015), Kate Werble Gallery, New York City (2016), Anonymous Gallery, Mexico City, Mexico (2017), the Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art, London, United Kingdom (2017), Stems Gallery, Brussels, Belgium (2017), Loyal Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden (2019), MO Museum, Vilnius, Lithuania (2019), Kunstverein Hannover, Hannover, Germany (2020), among others.
It's worth mentioning, that Self also held residencies at the American Academy in Rome, the La Brea Studio, T293 in Naples, Italy, and Red Bull House of Art in Detroit, Michigan.
Currently, Self lives and works in New Haven, Connecticut.
Self's figurative work primarily focuses on the black woman and the way black bodies inhabit and defy the narrow spaces, in which they are often forced to exist. Her figures, or "avatars", as she often calls them, are made with mixed-media materials, including acrylic, silks, and furs, that, when affixed to a stretched canvas, create waves and ripples, that mimic movement. This motion is a necessary meditation in Self's subjects and her own reality, as she defines confinement as the genesis story of her enslaved ancestors. This history informs Self's insistence, that her creations depict the most basic right of humanity, that rests just beyond the grasp of many black people - the ability to move freely without fear of punishment.
Through her project of a series, called "Bodega Run", Self explores how bodies are affected by their environment, which also impacts the way the bodies move through the world itself. Bodegas are small grocery stores, also known as liquor stores, that are commonly found on the east coast of America, specifically New York. The artist's inspiration for this project stems from her hometown of Harlem, where bodegas were and are very common. Tschabalala believes, that bodegas are a place, where communities, that share mutual issues, such as the issue of the oppression of people of color in America, come together. Her Bodega project stems from this belief and her "characters, populating the bodegas of Harlem, these groceries of the corner, true microcosms emblems of the black and Latin diasporas in New York".
Quotations:
"My current body of work is concerned with the iconographic significance of the Black female body in contemporary culture. My work explores the emotional, physical and psychological impact of the Black female body as icon, and is primarily devoted to examining the intersectionality of race, gender and sexuality."
"The fantasies and attitudes, surrounding the Black female body, are both accepted and rejected within my practice, and through this disorientation, new possibilities arise."