Chris
Friday
July 2024
Visual Arts
Macon, GA
Chris Friday is a multidisciplinary artist based in Miami. Her portfolio features large-scale works on paper, murals, video, ceramics, projections, photography, comic illustrations, installations, and social practice/activism through curating. Friday’s work has been included in exhibitions locally, nationally, and internationally.
Recent shows include solo exhibitions “Good Times” (2023) curated by Laura Novoa and presented at Oolite Arts (2023), “One More River” presented at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee, and group exhibitions such as “Rest is Power” (2023) curated by Deborah Willis and presented at New York University’s Center For Black Visual Culture, “The Cartography Project” presented by the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. (2022) and “Who Owns Black Art?” presented by Zeal Press (2019).
Friday has received numerous awards, fellowships, and grants, including being named the 2023 SouthArts Southern Prize and State Fellow for the State of Florida, a Knight Foundation “Knights Champion” support grant (2022), a “The Ellies” Creator award from Oolite Arts (2021), the GMBCV People's Choice award in Miami Beach's No Vacancy juried art show (2021), and residencies with MassMoCA (2023), Anderson Ranch Arts Center (2022), and the Visual Arts Residency at Chautauqua Institute (2019).
BIO
“My work explores themes of rest, privacy, and supplementing the archive as a way of advocating and claiming space for Black bodies that are historically excluded from it. Often incorporating a black-and-white Chalkboard aesthetic, which plays on concepts of learning and teaching, I analyze mainstream media to identify problematic perspectives and their origins, question the legitimacy of such perspectives, and offer possible solutions in my work. Recent large-scale drawings depict Black bodies in acts of leisure, at play, and in repose, as a means of opting out of stereotypically portraying Black bodies in various scenes of trauma, pain, or over-sexualization. Accompanied by comic-style graphic illustrations that allude to desired and imagined environments and context, I give my subjects the rest and privacy they are entitled to, even while on display reflecting the longing to achieve this for myself, my family, and my community in waking life.”
STATEMENT
How Do You Define Innovative Storytelling? How Can This Innovation Be Used As A Tool To Educate, Preserve, And Celebrate The Natural Environment?
“I define innovative storytelling as whatever allows you to successfully connect to an intended audience in a meaningful way. This can be a simple and straightforward relaying of information and facts, a more elaborate collaborative effort involving participatory exercises and various elements like visual (art/film/photography), music and performance or any combination of these things. The ability to pivot and tailor your story to the audience and what would reach them best characterizes this type of storytelling in my opinion.
One goal of storytelling is to impart understanding where it did not previously exist, so if that is achieved, I would consider whatever method used at that moment, innovative, especially in a social climate where connecting with others has become increasingly difficult.
Storytelling is already the way information is passed down from generation to generation, so as a tool to educate, preserve, and celebrate the natural environment it is very useful. If the message is about equity within the environmental movement, I would use storytelling to uncover the untold histories of people who were not and are not treated fairly, or who are not normally associated with the environmental movement and bring their stories to the forefront while seeking out current community members that have the capacity to help highlight and make these stories known in various ways.”