Stacey Robinson, “Binary ConScience,” March 27-May 2, 2015

Exhibit Catalog, Stacey Robinson, Binary ConScience

The title of the exhibition, as well as much of the work itself, explores W.E.D. Du Bois’s idea of “double consciousness” through a post-modern lens. In Robinson’s work, the “double consciousness” refers to the “two-ness” of being American and of being Black. It also acknowledges what Du Bois described as “the sense of always looking at one-self through the eyes of others.” In current culture, those external views of self are both constructed through and delivered by the media. Robinson considers the complexity of cultural Black exploitation through a variety of mediums including comic books, “reality” television and the music industry. He dismantles disseminated ideas of derogatory Black relations by distilling both form and content into graphic representations of the binary. Robinson layers historical and contemporary images and ideas to form complex collages reflective of his own multifaceted experience as American and Black.

Robinson’s multimedia works also serve as resistance to Black oppression in post-colonial America. His drawings, paintings, comics, writings and performances examine Black culture and the use of the Black body as a technology; a scientific method used to achieve a commercial or industrial objective. Cultural symbols, machinery, and non-human life forms function as survivalist metaphors for the Black experience. His work illustrates the conflicts of integration, unresolved slavery, and incomplete emancipation. It also offers hope. Some works offer visual “utopias” meant as inspiration to imagine endless possibilities of Black existence away from colonial factors. These images focus on escaping the influence of misrepresentation by creating spaces of healing, empowerment, organization and government, which Robinson argues hasn’t taken place uninterrupted anywhere globally in the last several centuries.

Stacey Robinson is completing his Masters of Fine Art at the State University of New York at Buffalo where he was awarded the Authur Schomburg Fellowship. He also earned a Bachelor of Arts in Graphic Art at Fayetteville State University. He is part of the collaborative team “Black Kirby” with artist John Jennings. Together, they create created comic books, gallery exhibitions and lectures that deconstruct the work of artist Jack Kirby and re-imagine Black resistance spaces inspired by Hip Hop, religion, the arts and sciences. Robinson is also an instructor for BAS’s Jump Start program.

Colin Dabkowski, “His work illustrates the conflicts of integration, unresolved slavery, and incomplete emancipation. It also offers hope,” Buffalo News, March 25, 2015.

Learn more about the artist at https://www.staceyarobinson.com/

Exhibition Sponsored by: Open Buffalo

Major exhibition Support:
Double Tree Club Hotel by Hilton Buffalo Downtown
Erie County Cultural Funding
M&T Bank
NYSCA Visual Arts Program
Additional Support:
Ashker’s Juice Bar
North American Breweries
City of Buffalo
Gates Circle Wine & Liquor
Individual donors