Reginald Sylvester II approaches painting as a structure of discipline. What begins in daily rituals—routine, repetition, and care—extends into a larger philosophy about belief, responsibility, and endurance. Practice, for him, is not separate from life. It is shaped by it.

Fatherhood, spiritual inquiry, and the demands of time become part of the architecture of the studio. Rather than protecting art from those pressures, Sylvester allows them to recalibrate how the work unfolds. The result is a practice grounded less in spectacle and more in sustained commitment.

Abstraction emerges through this framework as an act of faith. To begin a painting without knowing its final form is to trust that meaning will surface through repetition and attention. At a certain moment, that commitment required stepping away from exhibition altogether, allowing the work to evolve privately before returning to public view.

Rather than presenting artistic growth as clarity or mastery, Sylvester describes a practice built through persistence, where rigor, vulnerability, and belief remain inseparable.

He explains:

• Why daily rituals and discipline are foundational to sustaining a studio practice.• How fatherhood reshaped his relationship to time, responsibility, and ambition.• Why abstraction functions as an act of faith rather than a stylistic choice.• What it meant to withdraw from the exhibition to deepen the work in private.• How travel and research expanded the historical resonance of the work.

Timestamps

(0:00) Ritual and the Structure of Practice(5:00) Fatherhood and Responsibility(11:00) Abstraction and Faith(18:00) Stepping Away from Exhibition(26:00) Discipline and Repetition(34:00) Cutting into Surface: The Gates(41:00) Travel, History, and Material Memory(49:00) Persistence and Staying in the Work

Watch the conversationView the full episode on YouTube.

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Reginald Sylvester II (b. Jacksonville, NC, USA, 1987; lives and works in Jersey City, NJ) creates large-scale paintings and sculptures that trace the generative threshold between the two mediums. Working predominantly in abstraction, he expands the language of his painting practice by incorporating materials such as rubber, tarp, aluminium and steel. His singular approach lends his paintings a sculptural presence and imbues his sculptures with a painter’s sensibility. While grounded in traditional painting techniques, Sylvester II ventures beyond the conventions of stretched canvas, working on surfaces that both absorb and reject paint. His layered, often multi-partite works investigate the language of his chosen mediums: stretcher bars are left exposed, becoming part of his compositions, while oxidised and patinated metal surfaces evoke the histories of gestural painting. Sylvester II also transcends the surface, creating monumental sculptures that reference forms observed through painting and from his environment. The artist is drawn to materials that relate to his personal history, spirituality, or broader societal narratives. In his approach to assemblage, Sylvester II appropriates byproducts of his making process, physically attaching studio debris to works to enrich their tactile quality and textural narrative.

About The Forum

The Forum is NewCrits’ ongoing public talk series, presented in partnership with WSA/WSBS. Talks take place live every second Tuesday at WSA. Join us for our next conversation here.

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Full Transcript

Ajay Kurian: I’m gonna start off with the big questions, things that are really important to people. You are 37 years old. What the fuck is your skincare routine man?

Reginald Sylvester ll: 39.

Ajay Kurian: That’s insane.

Reginald Sylvester ll: Knocking on 40, bro.

Ajay Kurian: Oh my God.

Reginald Sylvester ll: Yeah, man. Cold water and shots out to mom Dukes.

Ajay Kurian: That’s really Mom Dukes and cold water. I remember this very clearly when Pharrell was asked, he said cold water too.

Reginald Sylvester ll: He’s right. Closes up your pores, but, yeah 39, about to be 40.

Ajay Kurian: And you’re a new father.

Reginald Sylvester ll: And I’m a new father.

Ajay Kurian: Congratulations.

Reginald Sylvester ll: Yeah, man.

Ajay Kurian: What’s family life right now? How do you do studio, father, all of the things?

Reginald Sylvester ll: To be honest, it’s not much studio. It is just really wifey, Noah, supporting her, you know. She’s still getting back to a hundred percent and so I’m just support right now. I’m the calvary. Keeping it down.

I fit in drawing, some reading when I can, but for the most part, I’m waking up, and it’s, what do you need, what you need help with, what does Noah need, and you need a break. I’m just support, you know, at this point.

Ajay Kurian: That’s good.

Reginald Sylvester ll: But the time away is gonna help the practice.

Ajay Kurian: Yeah. I think it always fuels it. Even if you’re not in the studio, other things are happening and you just brought life into the world. Your lovely wife brought life into the world. So how could that not affect?

I was thinking about you having a kid and what that means for the studio practice, but also what that means for how you share your spiritual practice with the next generation, with your kin, and how that’s meant a lot to you. Is church a part of your life or is it a different kind of spiritual practice? How are you gonna pass this on?

Reginald Sylvester ll: I grew up with my grandma going to the church. You know, that was how I grew up. But obviously as we grow and become adults, you start seeking after things on your own.

So I’m just in big research mode right now. I’m just doing a lot of reading, a lot of research, things that feel true, and things that I stray away from. But I’m in a big learning research, discovery mode, lots of conversations with my pops, my mom.

Ajay Kurian: And they’re open to those kinds of conversations? Because I know for myself, my parents are from Kerala, and there’s a huge Christian population there. So I grew up Christian and they’re very religious.

And I thought learning about theology and the history of Christianity and all that stuff would build a bridge. It did not. It was like it created more hostility in a way because it’s like, why do you have all these questions? Why are you inquiring? What are the bridges that you have with your folks?

Reginald Sylvester ll: So my dad, he went to theology school to become a pastor at a certain point. He’s done a lot of research and reading and so forth in his own life. And so when I come to him with questions, he’s very open arms, answering those questions, and guiding me with the questions.

Sometimes, parents can be very opinionated, you know, that’s not what you know, that’s what we should be looking at is this soul. But it’s great because I think in terms of spirituality, for me, I just wanna get to the truth. That’s what it’s really about.

And I think, through becoming an artist. Art is a thing that deals with truth. So once I made the decision to actually become an artist, it made me question a lot of things about, where I am, who I am, where I come from, you know what I’m saying? What do I believe? So I started to become a student of history and really just started to do a lot of reading, and then again, going back to my folks asking questions, did you hear about this? What do you think about this?

Ajay Kurian: That’s beautiful. It’s nice that you have that relationship with your family. I mean, it seems like they’re all kind of artists in their own way too.

Reginald Sylvester ll: Yeah. My dad, I guess I call ‘em like an artist and graphic designer. Growing up, I seen him do a lot of things with typography. Not really painting, but more so graphics. He did t-shirts, which is what led me to falling into streetwear, watching him kind of having a brand and doing his thing.

Ajay Kurian: Oh, he had a brand logo?

Reginald Sylvester ll: Yeah, I mean, Pops made shirts. But just seeing him kind of move like that gave me the confidence to wanna be a graphic designer or want to learn about typography or wanna learn about silk screening t-shirts. He was a big part of that.

Ajay Kurian: I wanna start with Limbo first. This is a quote that hit me really hard just ‘cause it’s a heavy thing to say. You said ‘making that connection between abstraction and faith grabbed hold of me. Suddenly for me to paint or find an image became symbolic of how one lives life, with hopes of dying to then enter into the kingdom of heaven’. That’s a heavy ass thing to say.

Reginald Sylvester ll: Yeah, I guess I didn’t mean it to be so deep or sound so heavy.

Ajay Kurian: What is the Kingdom of Heaven for you? What is that?

Reginald Sylvester ll: Kingdom of Heaven is to be with God, to be with Christ, to make it to paradise or spiritual paradise and how I attested that to painting. When I first came to New York for my second business trip in my graphic design days, I wasn’t concerned about being an abstract painter at all. But I ended up going to the Met and went to the abstract expressionist wing. First time with De Kooning, Gilliam, you name it — the guys, right? And I immediately felt like this is something I want to do. But I don’t know how I’m gonna get there. When I did start to research and read, I learned about De Kooning and him talking about finding an image, and it very much sounded like a painterly way of faith. Or how one goes through life, living life. We all try and I don’t know if people are religious or believe in God or heaven or after life or whatever, but we all live life the best we can in order to make it to that next place where our soul will rest, you know?

He talked about finding an image and it made that connection for me. So I said, if I’m gonna be any type of painter, it would be an abstract painter. Because it was like a painterly motif that defined faith, or how I sought and see faith. ‘Cause faith is believing in things unseen, right?

Ajay Kurian: For sure.

Reginald Sylvester ll: And so if you’re in the process of making a painting, but you don’t necessarily know what that finished image is, but you’re working your way through it, that’s what that thing is. And so, I don’t know what the Kingdom of Heaven looks like. It’s been described in a few ways, but I hope to get there, you know? So to get to that finished painting, I don’t wanna say perfect painting, but the act of making to find my way to new images is what made that connection for me.

Ajay Kurian: I remember I had to write something about On Kawara back in the day. And weirdly, after spending more and more time with the work, it felt like it was a practice of prayer. That every painting was a small act of devotion towards something unnameable. It didn’t have a shape or a way of being described, but you put in the work. It felt similarly related to thinking about what all this means here for somewhere else. It feels like that’s kind of the starting point for these 12 gates that are in Accra right now. How did this all come about? First of all, this space is fucking stunning.

Reginald Sylvester ll: Yeah, shout out to Limbo, man. That’s Dominique and the homie Diallo. Diallo suggested me to Dominique, who runs the Limbo Museum. Very forward-thinking in terms of the vision. But it’s a museum that basically uses abandoned spaces in order to give artists an opportunity to put together shows. They’ve started a residency program and I was the first artist to do the residency.

Initially, when I went to go visit for the first trip, I thought we were gonna use the space that they used for the prior presentation when they did the inaugural talk and show. And she was like, no, I’m just taking you here to just show you the initial space, but this is the idea that I have for you. So she went to the University of Ghana, and I was like, you are gonna let me do a show and this is what we’re doing? She was like, yeah, and it was great because it was my first time on the continent and I’ve always wanted to do a show on the continent. My father always talked about taking the family to the continent. Obviously I wanna touch roots. You know what I’m saying?

Ajay Kurian: Yeah.

Reginald Sylvester ll: But then it was also challenging ‘cause I’d never worked at this scale before. How are you gonna treat this space? How is the work gonna function in this space? How is it gonna reverberate in the space? Diallo and myself had a lot of conversations surrounding that and he challenged me on a lot of things in terms of these gates from their initial intent and how they were shown. How to move past that and to allow them to do other things. And so, this allowed me the space to do so.

Ajay Kurian: The first time you showed them was in LA . I just wanna show images of that exhibition, which had a great title, T-1000.

Reginald Sylvester ll: Yep, I’m sure everybody’s familiar with Terminator.

Ajay Kurian: Yeah, Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Reginald Sylvester ll: I’m super big into sci-fi movies that got that post-apocalyptic punk undertone. You know, brutalist, kind of futurist.

Ajay Kurian: I mean, it shows. The work is definitely in that vibe and I remember when I was researching you, that I saw this show. But I do remember when you were fabricating those gates and I was checking the progress on Instagram, and I was like, shit, this is different. This isn’t a new step.

Reginald Sylvester ll: Finding my way through making new types of paintings led me to sculpture. I’m a fan of painting first and being interested as a maker, you’re always trying to figure out, how can I push the work? How can I find myself? If I’m interested in sculpture, how do I find my way there? Being introduced to a new material, which is rubber, led me to really changing the whole process and way I make work.

That led me to a form that was found by way of the byproducts of the paintings, which gave way to the gates. And so that’s the cutting that you see in the rubber. Because at one point I was researching and reading a lot about ready-made sculptures. I started to think about my paintings in the sense of a ready-made and how I can show all parts or all aspects of the painting. Making this curvature incision, and the shape that I was left with when it was laid on the floor in my studio reminded me of the floor plans used for the boats that were used in the transatlantic slave trade.

Ajay Kurian: That’s interesting to hear. I always thought it was the other way around. I thought that you had that shape in mind and then that curvature got cut and it became that act of violence in the surface. But it’s interesting to hear that it was first a formal decision. One where it was like, let’s get to the truth of the material.

Reginald Sylvester ll: The thought of even showing the substrate. I think that’s why I wanna continue to put myself in new situations in the studio. Because for me, and every artist is different, but that’s the way that I grow. So if the aesthetic of a material interests me, it’s for me to not really ask too many questions. It’s just to respond to it.

So I was using a lot of military tent shell halves, they’re called pup tents. You basically button two of the tent halves together to make a full tent. I was buttoning them together to stretch them over the substrate, but because they don’t make a complete closure, you get access to the substrate.

I thought, oh, I can be more intentional about that. This is happening by way of accident. I made a series of paintings with the pup tents, but I said, how am I gonna be more intentional about this access to revealing the substrate and how it changes the form and the structure of my work.

The reason why I called them Gates, because thinking about that history along that journey. I mean, we’ve seen Amistad films, so how do I take this history and reverberate it into something, I don’t wanna say beautiful, but speak further into it.

Ajay Kurian: It feels like the history of black culture in so many ways where it’s like you take shitty situations that are beyond the pale, and then you consistently make joy out of it.

Reginald Sylvester ll: Yes. I think some of the best work is made from the most mundane things. I think that’s black and brown folk in general. We take a lot of the waste and cook and repurpose it into something great.

Reginald Sylvester ll: And so I said, all those bodies that were lost along that journey, where do those souls lie? Scripture say that all souls return to the father once they pass. But I just thought that, maybe I can take this shape and I can reform it as this gate-like sculpture in order to give way for those souls to pass through, to have rest.

Ajay Kurian: So in that early version, that’s sheet metal welded together and it has a structure underneath, but then this becomes airy and light. What does that translation mean for you? What does it mean to take it to this place of pure structure?

Reginald Sylvester ll: A big part of my work and how I continue to try and grow, is I’m just paying attention to what interests me. I used to have a studio out in Ridgewood and I would look at a lot of the debris. The junk by the trash cans, the back of semi-trucks and how they oxidize over time, the environment of the city, the outside. And using that as a language to bring into the studio. So I did the same thing when I went to Ghana.

Ghana’s a very interesting place because it excited me, but it also made me really upset. Because you see wealth and poverty right next to each other. You go to a hotel that’s around the corner from people who don’t even have clean water. You know what I’m saying?

Ajay Kurian: That feels like Mumbai too. I remember going there and there’s like Prada on one side, and then this dude with his hands disintegrating from leprosy. It is so stark. Where I’m from, in the south, it’s still communist, and the discrepancy in wealth is much less extreme. But there’s certain places in various parts of the world where the jump is so crazy that it really fucks with you.

Reginald Sylvester ll: And just getting a grasp on, why is this happening? So from my understanding of what they were telling me, when new individuals were elected or coming into power, certain buildings that had paperwork and had the okay to go forward — build this hotel, build up this certain area, build up these certain advertisements — if that project wasn’t complete by the time that individual who gave way for it to happen, the next person that came into power can say yay or nay on whether it’s finished or not.

Which initially gave Dominique the idea for Limbo, right? Because you’re seeing all these great infrastructures half built and then the people that are living there have to deal with it. Anyway, getting to the language within the gates here, it was by way of seeing the advertisement signs and the structures that were exposed.

It’s funny, I see Eric Mack in the back, my bro, and I thought about ‘em a lot. I told Dominique to reach out to Eric, because you would see a lot of torn away signages breezing in the wind. I was just thinking about the structure of these gates and the call or need for tension. You know, not as this solid form, but as this form that your eyes can kind of pass through. And then thinking about the space that they’re about to be exhibited in. It’s a very raw skeletal space.

So I want the works to have this presence, where they’re there, but they also evaporate. Even these sight lines were very important for us because I want your eye to rest on the sculpture, but I also want your eye to be able to pass through the structure and just enjoy the space as well too. You have sculpture after sculpture that reveals a painting in the distance.

So that was another reason why I wanted to stick to this thing and also just thinking about radical black empowerment or thinking about Nkrumah. Thinking about his influence on W-B-W-E-B, du Bois, Malcolm X, all these individuals who I look up to, and have read about and thinking about. The writings, the fortitude and resilience they had, and how maybe these forms can give way for those teachings and those hopes for the continent or those from the diaspora. For those that kind of echo throughout these works as well.

Ajay Kurian: I’m not familiar with, you said Nkrumah?

Reginald Sylvester ll: He was a revolutionary that really wanted to unite all of Africa. While he was living and was active, he had a huge influence on a lot of American activists as well. Malcolm X was somebody he really influenced.

Ajay Kurian: I gotta do some reading.

Reginald Sylvester ll: Yeah, so that first trip was very visual and the latter end was very like, I’m looking, I’m reading, I’m writing. Then the second trip was going to work.

Ajay Kurian: It’s beautiful that you find the vernacular of the city, the tubing, and it sits in the space but it takes you somewhere else. It’s like it’s building on all these conversations that you’ve already been having. It really makes me think how far you’ve come in this crazy way where you started in graphic design, typology, and working in streetwear. To go from that to this. It’s not insane or anything, but it’s a pretty serious distance in terms of what that work looked like and where you are now. Your first show is In Search of a Wonderful Place. It’s very obviously condo inspired.

Reginald Sylvester ll: Heavily.

Ajay Kurian: Heavily. You’re bringing your own things to it, but it’s also within this space of what I’ve seen a few times over. Of people who are in streetwear and the artists that they’re interested in are all the same artists, which are Condo, KAWS, and Picasso

Reginald Sylvester ll: Murakami.

Ajay Kurian: Murakami. Also, let’s not forget Basquiat and Warhol.

Reginald Sylvester ll: Yep.

Ajay Kurian: Those are the names. And it’s an instance in which we get to see an artist process it live. You’re doing it in exhibitions, not in the studio. There are people that are figuring their shit out and they get their opportunities much later. But one thing that is a credit to you is you are always adept at what you were doing, and somebody saw some promise there and then you kept pushing it forward. So to go from this to deep gestural abstraction is already a huge jump. Why did you forsake this?

Reginald Sylvester ll: This is when I moved to New York, but prior was that trip to the Met. I was aware of the Met, but I didn’t have the studio time, nor the hand and eye coordination to even make a pure gestural, abstract painting. But that’s why I named this show In Search of a Wonderful Place. I don’t know if I’m at the wonderful place now, but you know, this was me making the work that I was interested in at that time. And also titling the show in a way where I could have definitely stayed there, but I’m in search of something.

Ajay Kurian: When did this place stop being wonderful?

Reginald Sylvester ll: I mean, it was funny when we were talking the other day. I was going back on our conversation and the beautiful thing for me about art is that it’ll let you know if your intent is pure. My intention behind all the different bodies of work that I made, was always pure.

It was to push as hard as I could at that particular time. But at the end of the day, art is gonna push you to truth if you’re really doing it for real. If your intent is to really make the purest work that you could possibly make, it’ll pull out all the lies. It’ll pull out all the fake shit. It’ll make you question. I’d make work, and then I’d ask myself, why is this work relevant to you and who you are? What aesthetic interest does it have to you? What more do you have to say?

I would ask myself these questions, and then at the same time, I’m seeing retrospectives for the first time, I’m traveling, I’m buying books, I’m learning about this, that, and the third, there’s a cannon. I’m educating myself at the same time, but I never thought, not until after this show, I made the decision that I wanna just take two years off.

Ajay Kurian: Oh, wow.

Reginald Sylvester ll: And just be in the studio and really push as hard as I can in order to make my first presentation of abstract paintings. But, you know, before that, it wasn’t a fear for me to be growing and developing in front of people. I just thought, you know, I’m making work.

You saw the last show that I’m doing and I’m progressing. Also, I think a lot of my favorite shows were retrospective. So I would see an accumulation of an artist’s life within one exhibition, so I never really thought about it in a scary way. But after this show I said, yo, I really want my next presentation to be pure abstractions.

Ajay Kurian: Interesting. I had never seen the show, so I had to do some digging. For one, it’s crazy that it’s at the Lever House. That’s no small thing. And two, was Richard Prince on your mind at all? Because it was really fascinating that I could see Matisse, Picasso, Basquiat, but also you pushing it into a different place. It did feel like, okay, I see a voice here. It doesn’t feel like it’s just pulling from these things and kind of chopping it up differently.

So I was trying to find the show, and this felt really reminiscent, but this was a year later and he hadn’t made this work yet. It was an interesting thing to see that this gestural, sort of semi figurative abstraction was something that he returned to. But the difference to me is that with Richard Prince, there’s always this irony. There’s a built in sense of he believes it and he doesn’t at the same time.

In a sense, there was a moment, when I was coming up, there was a moment in painting where everything about abstract expressionism was questioned. Is there such a thing as a pure mark? Is there such a thing as pure subjectivity? Or is it always filtered through ideology or economics or whatever it may be? There are artists that are thinking about that, like Cheyney Thompson trying to break down what the mark means. Wade Guyton taking the hand out of it altogether.

Reginald Sylvester ll: I was watching Wade.

Ajay Kurian: What’s your relationship to an artist like Wade Guyton?

Reginald Sylvester ll: Aesthetically he speaks to stuff that I’m interested in. To me, this is futurist painting. But I come from graphic design, so the fact that he’s using the Epson printer, you know, I very much so understand Epson in printmaking in that way.

His book practice is really incredible. I’ve learned from buying tons of books. I’m very interested in making my own books. I’ve been lucky enough to make a few, so I’m interested in him in that way. Prince, I’m also interested in, because he’s also an artist who has done different things. It’s funny that you say that work came a year after, but during Premonition I was heavily invested in that work. That’s where I was heavily invested at that time.

Ajay Kurian: So we met in 2021. I feel like I started hearing your name and I started seeing the work and the thing that captured me the most was your presence, and the way that you are in the world. I was like, okay, that person has like an energy that radiates in a very specific way. And so I was like, I know they’re cooking, I know something’s happening there.

What I’m curious about, in a moment like that, where you’re shifting so many things in yourself that you’re very clear about. What does that look like to other people? Like from where you come from to that particular moment? How does that environment start to change for you?

Reginald Sylvester ll: I used to get all types of remarks from homies, from people that would meet me. I remember I mentioned to you when we were talking about what people are thinking about the work.

I hope they think that my intentions are pure when I’m making this work. I hope nobody thinks I’m just trying to, oh, this might work. Nah, man. I’m gonna go back to that first thing and then continue to unpack the things that I’m seeing and reading about and watching in terms of art. I was motivated to and I want to have a rigorous studio practice. I want to continue to pay attention to the things that are working within the work that may not be working. Expand on those things and then continue to push. Just for myself, so I can sleep at night. At the end of the day I need to make the work that I’m the most happy about before anybody else has anything to say, and that’s why I made the decision to take two years off. I’m gonna dig deep. I’m gonna make the best abstract paintings that I can possibly make. You know? And that’s what I did. From that, I learned so much.

I continue to do that in the studio today. If I’m making work, and there’s a small thing about the painting that I just finished. I’m expanding on it. What started to happen is, I was starting to reference myself in things that were working within the studio to expand on, opposed to maybe continuing to look outward or how am I gonna situate myself in the cannon? Or where do I fit? What do I contribute? And more so I just started thinking very insular about what my real interests are. That’s when the best work started to come or the work that I feel the most proud of.

Ajay Kurian: And of course being able to sleep at night is a serious thing. That’s an important way to live your life. It keeps truth in you, but there’s also just economic realities too, if you had success with one particular body of work. Did you get pushback from people in that regard too? Like I see that you’re going this way, but this isn’t what we asked for?

Reginald Sylvester ll: No, I didn’t really get pushback in that way. I think it was more, certain individuals or friends or whatnot would always kind of say that you are losing your previous audience. I would see on social media that I’d lose followers. Stuff like that, you know? But when you really sit with yourself, does that really mean anything? You know, again, art would beg the question of what’s true, what’s truth? Visually, what’s the closest to truth you can get for yourself.

I mean, those things definitely in some way bother me. I’m not gonna say that they did not, but you know, I look back and I’m glad I kept continuing to have that kind of interest into pushing.

Ajay Kurian: I mean, I’m glad too. But the other thing that comes to mind is the kind of racial dynamic here. Did people feel like, and did you feel like, you were moving from black space to white space?

Reginald Sylvester ll: Nah, nah. I didn’t feel like that, but I probably got that from other people.

Ajay Kurian: I’m not saying that abstraction is a white space. Of course, it goes back further in black and brown places.

Reginald Sylvester ll: Than anywhere else, yeah. I think to an audience that raised me up and held me up. You know, coming from street wear, coming from culture in that way, I had a clothing brand, I had built an audience from that. Then my interests started to change and my, I call it maybe a calling, started to change and I really wanted to pursue art and try to make the strongest bodies of work that I could possibly make. I did lose people in that way. I remember, I had a homegirl tell me, she said something on the lines of, I don’t know what this work is about. I mean, from an aesthetic standpoint, you might not be understanding. But abstract painting and art history has layers to it. It’s not just the pictorial thing. But it’s funny now, a lot of those people are —

Ajay Kurian: Coming around.

Reginald Sylvester ll: Coming around, you know, because again, it’s a journey.

Ajay Kurian: You’re very intentional about your movement. It’s not Ooh, let me jump on this, or, Ooh, let me do that.

Reginald Sylvester ll: I mean, I could have stayed where I was at in 2021. I could have maybe stayed where I was in 2023. But it’s not what it’s about and there’s growing pains. For me, better things have gotten tougher.

Ajay Kurian: I believe that.

Reginald Sylvester ll: I’m just moved by evolving and growing and digging deeper and digging into what excites me in the studio. If there’s something that excites me in the studio, I’m going that way.

You know, the show that I had in North Carolina at the Harvey B. Gantt Center was a great exhibition for me. I got that show, and I was making the refuge paintings. They were all basically gestural abstract paintings on the pup tents, and then came the offering paintings. And when I made that first offering, I said, the hell with those refuge paintings, I’m showing straight, offering paintings.

To be in the middle of a situation where someone gives you a show, and you’re expected to make this thing, but you got this other thing. Luckily, I work with people that believe in what I’m doing and trust me. You know, had the real conversation, sat down, this is the work that I’m making. This is what I wanna do. Maybe I can find a way to bridge it, you know? And luckily, I was able to really think through and find a way to show and stitch together.

That first image that you had up, that was the first time I was able to show those paintings. And you know, I’m always gonna make the shift, even with T-1000. I decided to use iridescent dark colors because I felt like, hey, I wanna be a stronger colorist.

How am I gonna do that? Okay, instead of just working with colors that complement one another, you need to actually be able to work with a set few colors or one color. You need to be able to make paintings with the same amount of intensity that you would get from a saturated picture, but with a muted picture, how can you do that? So I said, okay, I’m gonna make these paintings and obviously there was an interest in sculpture and steel and the oxidization and all those things, and I made the decision to do it.

You know, thinking on the other side of it with my first show in Los Angeles. Rob Bennett gave me this opportunity to have this exhibition and it’s very risky to go and do a show like that. But again, he was like, this is what you wanna do, okay, bet.

There’s a Nina Simone clip that I see often and I reposted it. She’s saying that artists should be reflecting the times, you know? So I was like, yo, this is where I’m at in the studio and I’m seeing where things are going in our current and this is the way for me to tell truth.

Ajay Kurian: Yeah. It feels like the way you’re talking about challenging yourself, it felt very mamba mentality. This is what I think I’m strong at. Let me see the weakest part of that, so I can figure out how to get strong there. That’s an ethic that’s not easy to put on yourself. I think when you’re in school or when you have people that are around you that are like, oh, you gotta push yourself, you gotta do these things. But when you’re alone and by yourself, and the temptations that are around you, where it’s oh, you’re getting all this praise and accolades and things for doing things in a certain way. You can get seduced by that and it stops being about the pursuit of what you find to be strong and true, but more so, all right, this works. Because there’s also very real world constraints where I could maybe put a down payment on a house if I stay on this course, versus who the fuck knows what it’s gonna be.

Reginald Sylvester ll: Yeah. At a point I reached out to a few artists that I was lucky to be able to meet, who have been doing it longer than I have, that are a generation or two older than me. I actually was asking those questions like, I wanna do this, this is the work that I’m making, people like this stuff. Do both. If this is what’s working, pump that, and then that can support the other stuff. I was like, okay. I heard that a few times from a few people. But then it’s on you.

You also have artists who don’t have the exposure at the age I’m at. I got an opportunity to meet William T. Williams, you know, a goat. And he’d been banging the boards way far longer than I have.

Ajay Kurian: Yeah.

Reginald Sylvester ll: I got to go to him. Funny enough, the foundry that I used to make the gates at — I had been using that foundry for a year, not knowing that I was driving past his crib the whole time.

Ajay Kurian: No way.

Reginald Sylvester ll: So he was like, yeah, this is my address. I’m like, this is literally 10 minutes down the road from where I’m making these gates.

Ajay Kurian: God damn. Wow.

Reginald Sylvester ll: So I went to go see him and his studio. Met his lovely wife and we had sandwiches. It was great. It was fire. I just saw how dialed in he was at the age that he was, but then thinking again on how long he’s been doing it.

So even for me to have opportunities since 2015 till now and to be able to continue to show work, whether it was considered valid or not. Still have opportunities to show work, have people that still wanna back you, believe in the work, help fight. When I get into those thoughts, what do I really got to complain about?

There’s artists that have become stewards in a way, where they’re teachers and they support their practice by working. They’re doing that and then still dialed in on the practice. When I do get into those moments, I look at the peers that I really see who’s pushing and enjoy it, and I look at them and I’m like, dang, they doubling down. Fuck, I can’t not double down. I gotta double down.

There’s great artists making within the same time that I’m making that I also am inspired by. I’m not gonna say it’s easy. I have my moments. The person that probably sees those moments a lot now is my wife. Of course. She’s like oh, you’re being on your Edgar Allen Poe, you is all mopey today.

But that’s the journey though. Jack Whitten said it the best. They asked him, did he ever want to be one of the best artists, and he said, I just wanted to be one of the boys. And that was fucking legendary. I think for me, that’s if Jannis Kounellis, Gilliam, Hammonds, Ed Ruscha — If any of these guys were in the room, you know what I’m saying?

Ajay Kurian: And they tipped their hat.

Reginald Sylvester ll: I’d rather go out swinging than to just be like, you know what, this works and I’m gonna sell a hundred thousand of these. But then, what?

Ajay Kurian: I mean, the punches are landing my friend. So I hope they keep landing.

Reginald Sylvester ll: Lord willing.

Ajay Kurian: I’m excited to see what transformations happen next. Thank you for this. Thanks for being honest. Thanks for opening up. Thanks for sharing everything. It means a lot to everybody here, so thank you.

Reginald Sylvester ll: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

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