An Artist on Paying Homage to Harlem, and Using Found Fabrics in Paintings

On a drizzly morning in April, the artist Tschabalala Self, 28, straps on kneepads and pulls back her braids to kneel above a quilt-like painting. Her textile works are sewn from fabric scraps — brick-stamped canvas, Timberland-colored beige, acid-washed denim — and imagine black women and men in her home neighborhood of Harlem as exaggerated characters.

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In 2018, Self became an artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem, joining a formidable group of alumni that includes Mickalene Thomas, Kerry James Marshall, Kehinde Wiley, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Julie Mehretu, Wangechi Mutu and Titus Kaphar. Since the museum is closed for renovation through 2021, MoMA PS1 will host this year’s show; on June 1, works by Self, as well as two other artists, will open to the public. Self’s body of work, called “Street Scenes,” is a series of eight paintings with trompe l’oeil brick walls that coalesce to form one scene — a narrative continuation of “Bodega Run,” currently up at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, her garishly lit installation of sculptural paintings depicting women in a neighborhood corner store.

Source: An Artist on Paying Homage to Harlem, and Using Found Fabrics in Paintings