Riiiide or Die Boy, 2018
acrylic, marker, graphite, glitter, and plastic rhinestones on canvas
130" x 110"
Rubell Family Collection
Miami, Florida
I had the pleasure of a guided tour of the Rubell Family Collection in Miami during which I saw these remarkable figurative paintings (also with drawing and appliqué) by Jonathan Lydon Chase, a painter based in Philadelphia who is just three years out of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts MFA program. The intersection of queer and Black is not an unexplored merger, yet Chase's paintings are their own entities with their unabashed eroticism; simultaneous art historic and 90s hip hop referencing; and straight up academic faculty. I would love to see Chase's work in Canada, but since museums and galleries are still playing catch up, showing established rather than emergent Black artists, I suspect it will be a long wait.
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