Macey Osei-Kissi

Artist Statement

In my artwork, context, specifically story, is essential. Materials sourced from historical archives and family collections. I composed narrative paintings and photography that describe my thoughts about the stories I've heard and been told about myself and other Black people. My paintings combine colour and expressive brushwork to communicate my feelings about these stories and experiences. Each discipline allows me to tackle the same idea but from different starting points. By contrast, the black in my work argues against history, it is not a colour characterized by absence, but instead by presence. Black is a combination of all colours, and must, therefore, be the richest and most vibrant of them all. I see my work as a model for how the assembly of images can serve as an archive of the past as well as a document of the present.

No tense of time matters in its singularity. The way in which we move through space forms what we see and how we make those connections between all tenses of time, creating space for lesser-known history. The things we remember become fact over time.

Black people are not coming from a place of lack.