HIGH CHROMA

This episode focuses on Elien Itzel and how she revised how we channel gods and the use of colors to invoke energetic presence over figures. Itzel is known for her vibrant use of colors and symbolage grounded in the religion of Ifa: a religious practice traditional to the Yoruba people. Her latest solo exhibition at Leiminspace Gallery invites guests to immerse themselves into bursts of zeal.

This is an impromptu episode experiencing in real-time, the announcement of Telfar Clemens’, “Bag Security Program,” announced to take place on August 19, 2020.

Lanise Howard sits down with Suni Mullen during an open studio visit. Lanise shares her experience during school and how she works to actively rebel against weighted comments. We acknowledge how being great can be difficult but the momentum does not stop because there is a greater goal of success in mind, “God got this.” The large sized canvases provoke emotions of surrealism and can be intimidating which provokes thoughts and a desire to know more not only about the piece, but also about the artist.

Jillian Suzanne welcomed me to navigate through her private studio. In this episode, she shares that she is using a 1950’s Oxford Dictionary to inform her current works. Suzanne uses pages from the dictionary that host words that have been propagated to oppress and describe Black Americans. We then transition into how she has re-contextualized her findings of her ancestry into her newer works that have evolved from abstract works in black and white to releasing ancestral trauma with colors and physical depictions.