By tight, round marks and gentle shading, Robert Pruitt creates portraits that invite viewers right into a magical world. Rendered in a mixture of charcoal, conté, and pastel, his works are rooted in storytelling and the way private narrative presents perception into broader, extra collective questions on Southern tradition, rituals, and enmeshed identities.
The artist brings fashions into his Harlem studio and pictures them donning elaborately constructed costumes. His drawings emerge from these classes, though Pruitt prefers a monumental scale. Rendered on paper dyed with espresso, the portraits stretch upwards of seven ft, their meticulous shading and linework backdropped by washes of the characteristically heat hue.
A latest self-portrait presents the artist in his signature novelty glasses, the swirling X-Ray lenses resting on his brow. His palms, moderately than his face, are the topic of this ten-foot-wide work, and every wears gold jewellery, his hometown represented on a Houston Rockets ring. The title nods to the character of Herman Smith, performed by Richard Pryor within the 1978 retelling of The Fantastic Wizard of Oz, The Wiz.
Adornment is distinguished in Pruitt’s works and serves a twin function: it offers a way to excavate questions on id, tradition, place, and time and likewise presents an opportunity to seek out one thing “enjoyable and bizarre to attract,” he says. Recurring motifs like lemons, mushrooms, snakes, and birds are a newer addition to his portraits, they usually typically envelop the central determine. In “Princess with a plague of Grackles,” for instance, the quintessential Texan creature perches on a seated lady’s shoulders and arms.
“These days, I’ve been pondering extra concerning the physique as steady with the world. Our our bodies take issues in, let issues out—and that course of, to me, alerts a sort of equality with every thing round us,” Pruitt tells Colossal.
Connecting to nature additionally invokes the divine and alludes to the artist’s constellation of references, whether or not or not it’s his curiosity in science fiction, comedian books, music, or his enduring love for “swampy, humid Houston, Texas,” he provides.
I believe a part of it’s nostalgia, particularly in distinction to my life now in New York Metropolis. I miss residence…On some stage, these works really feel like staging grounds for my very own origin story—coming from a sophisticated metropolis that additionally feels deeply rural. A sort of Eden, however one crammed with mosquitoes and stray canines. Nature not as cute or comforting however detached—and nonetheless sacred.
Should you’re in New York, you’ll be able to see Pruitt’s work in a solo exhibition named after a Solar Ra libretto, …Son…Solar…Sin…Syn…zen…Zenith, at Salon 94. Discover extra from the artist on his website and Instagram.
