Shawn Theodore
Works
-
Mnêmosynê, Afrolinquistica - a portrait of Poet Laureate Amanda S. Gorman, 2018
-
Africaine No 2, 2017
From the series ‘Futute Antebellum’ -
Amanda, 2018
-
Black Hole Quasar in Capricorn, 2016
From the series ‘Church of Broken Pieces’ -
When You Are Your Own Mirror, 2018
-
Oluchi Oneya — Li ka wè nan rayi ou, 2018
From the series ‘The Sisters of Cypress’
-
Kijito, 2016
From the series ‘Church of Broken Pieces’ -
Saint Paulia's Wish, 2016
From the series ‘Church of Broken Pieces’ -
Sè Nan Pye Bwa A Pichpen, 2018
From the series ‘The Sisters of Cypress’
-
Off Kilter, 2016
From the series ‘Church of Broken Pieces’ -
SuperMaasai, 2017
From the series ‘Church of Broken Pieces’ -
The Future is Female, 2016
From the series ‘Church of Broken Pieces’
Biography
Shawn Theodore Biography
Shawn Theodore (b. 1970) is an award-winning photographer whose work blends the real and mythological as it explores African American and African Diasporic life within disappearing Black American neighborhoods. Set to the visual texture of Black life, Theodore’s work illustrates physical and spiritual resistance to systematic oppression and creates a metaphorical connection to African legacies and traditions while doing so. After studying art, a chance meeting with legendary New York hip hop photographer, and future mentor, Jamel Shabazz enlivened Theodore’s motivation to photograph strangers. The work finds his subjects often in candid, solitary moments, both bathed in powerful sunlight and shrouded in shadow. In Shabazz’s word the work depicts its subjects as “relevant in a world where people of color are projected as unimportant, and irrelevant.”
