Current Book

My in-progress manuscript uses visual analysis and ethnographic methods to understand the contemporary practices of Black artists who navigate racial capitalism in the art market. In the Black: The Art Market and Racial Capitalism 2015 - 2025 examines the practices of contemporary Black artists engaging with definitions of Black art’s value. Taken together, this project highlights the creative strategies Black artists implement to navigate the art market, and it proposed how we might better trace the contours of racial capitalism, and its impact on the imagination.

 
 

Current Research

  • In the Black: Value on the Art Market 2015 - 2025

    Lava Thomas, Solidarity Redux: Black Lives Matter, 2021-22 (Video still)

  • Haptic Scenes, Black Intimacies: Geoffrey Holder’s Dance Paintings (2024)

    with Alexandra M. Thomas, Chapter in Volume edited by Erica Moiah James

  • Delita Martin Monograph

  • Woody De Othello’s Exhausted Figures, Breathing Objects

    Woody De Othello, Defeated, depleted (2018) Ceramic, underglaze, and glaze
    38 × 22 × 19 in | 96.5 × 55.9 × 48.3 cm

Past Research

  • In the Black: Figures of Racial Capitalism (2024)

    This dissertation lays the groundwork for a book length study on Black art and racial capitalism. Submitted for the completion of the doctoral degree at Stanford University.

  • WE BEEN HERE (2024)

    Essay in edited volume Blood, Sweat, and Time: Emerging Perspectives on Mildred Howard and Adrian Burrell. (Image of Arturo Schomburg, courtesy of the Schomburg Center NYPL)

  • Attempting Escape: Plotting Asymptotes in Michael Richards's Tar and Feather (2023)

    Luke Williams; Attempting Escape: Plotting Asymptotes in Michael Richards's Tar and Feather. liquid blackness 1 October 2023; 7 (2): 88–99. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/26923874-10658336

  • MoAD Journal: Contemporary Perspectives on African Diasporic Art

    MoAD Journal

    Creator and Inaugural Editor for the MoAD Journal

  • Trina Michelle Robinson: Black Bodies Out of Focus

    Trina Michelle Robinson, still from Elegy for Nancy (2022) https://www.oldcitypublishing.com/journals/waj-home/waj-issue-contents/waj-volume-46-number-1-2025/