Dáreece Walker, visual artist based out of Brooklyn, New York, takes this responsibility quite seriously. Through the themes and materials of his works, that often deal with race, identity, and religion, he holds a rather large, stark mirror to what’s happening around him.
One of the things Dáreece has been consciously trying to do is create some sort of balance between talking about the harsh realities of racism and police brutality against black people in the USA on one hand and on the other, offering a glimpse into the beautiful, simple aspects of black people’s lives – his most recent project ‘Black Fathers Matter’, for example, documents black fathers simply hanging out with their children. Reimagining the past and integrating elements to create what it should have been also make his work especially powerful – ‘Our Angels’ project is a great example of that. ‘Black is the Giant’ is another brilliant project where a lot of anxiety, repressed emotions, stereotypes, and micro-aggressions related to race roll up into a colossal pile and metamorphose into a Giant to fight against all these energies.
We talk to Dáreece about the ideas and thoughts behind all of these projects over a Zoom call in the month of October in 2020. We also spoke about his creative influences, spoken word poetry, Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, and the significance of cardboard as a material in his work: https://thefloatingmagazine.com/people-dareece-walker/
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