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Draft:Kyng Rhodes

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Kyng Rhodes
Alma materVincennes University, 2016
OccupationArtist
Known forBlack Lives Matter street mural
Websitehttps://www.kyngrhodes.com/

Nathaniel Rhodes, known as Kyng Rhodes, is an American painter, graphic designer and muralist based in Indianapolis. His work has been featured in the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Flower Show, Gainbridge Fieldhouse, the 2024 U.S. Olympic Swim Trials, and at BUTTER art fair. As member of the Eighteen Collective, he contributed to Black Lives Matter street mural (Indianapolis).[1][2][3]

Early life and education

Rhodes's artistic endeavors started at the age of 3 after he rifled through his mother's cosmetic products and then proceeded to use them as his medium when drawing on the walls and furniture of his home. In an interview with Newfields, Rhodes noted that his mother believed these pieces to be better than the artwork you might expect your average 3-year-old to produce.[2] Rhodes graduated from Arsenal Tech High School in 2012 and went on to attend college at Vincennes University. In college, Rhodes pursued graphic design intending to find a happy medium between corporate and creative work. Rhodes graduated from Vincennes University in 2016.[4]

Career

After college, Rhodes began his graphic design career through freelance work before being hired on to work at a marketing company. During the summer of 2020, Rhodes participated in one of Indianapolis' Black Lives Matter protests while holding up a painting he created depicting a fist. Here he was discovered by Malina Simone Bacon and Alan Bacon, the co-founders of GANGGANG, who offered to purchase his painting. Rhodes rejected their offer at the time, however, the trio still stayed in touch after the chance encounter, leading to Rhodes' invitation to participate in the Black Lives Matter street mural in Indianapolis.[2]

Rhodes painted the letter "B" in the Indianapolis Black Lives Matter street mural in the summer of 2020. For his depiction of the letter, he was inspired by Kente fabric to create the pattern of colors that he used to symbolize privileged lives (green), unprivileged lives (red), and the system in between them (blue). The artist also included images on his letter of a red handprint and Afro pick, respectively symbolizing all the lives lost in Indianapolis due to police brutality and the "coarseness" of African American's hair and lives. The marketing company Rhodes still worked for at the time fired him after the mural's completion claiming that he was bringing negative attention to their company and causing them to lose clients.[5] With all the new artistic opportunities arising for Rhodes after the Black Lives Matter street mural he decided to trade in his graphic design career with that of a full-time artist.[6]

The Eighteen Collective, the eighteen artists who created the Black Lives Matter street mural in Indianapolis, were invited to the Indianapolist Museum of Art at Newfields to have a year-long exhibit that would display their individual pieces outside of the mural. This exhibit, titled "We. The Culture," was up in the museum from September 2022 until September 2023, and it included two paintings by Rhodes: "Colored King" and "Woman in Paradise".[7][1][8] Rhodes's collaboration with Newfields branched out from the singular exhibition after the museum was chosen to be a guest exhibitor at the Philidelphia Flower Show. For this show the museum brought on Rhodes to create a mural that would highlight the concept of art in nature, which the museum had attempted to embody through their 2017 rebrand.[9] For this piece Rhodes painted birds spreading seeds over a garden and into places where they previously were not "allowed to grow" as a symbolic example of how he expected to see Newfields' connection with the underrepresented artists in the community grow.[2] The mural was titled "Newfound Fields" by Rhodes and consisted of 18 4-foot by 8-foot panels painted by the artist in a little over a month.[10]

On May 27th, 2023, Newfields reopened their American galleries under the title "Work in Progress: Conversations about American Art" and it featured two of Rhodes' paintings: "Big White System" (2022) and "Red Handed" (2022).[2] For this installation Newfields highered on a select few local individuals to reimagine this gallery and add context to visual artwork in order to better represent the multifaceted reality of American history. The team called themselves "The Looking Glass Alliance" and it included Nasreen Khan, Tatjana Rebelle, Jordan Ryans, Bobby Young, and Rhodes himself. Rhodes contributed to the development of "Work in Progress" by painting two pieces in response to preexisting paintings in the Newfields collection with the aim of filling in the blanks in the original painting's narrative.[11][12] "Red Handed," titled by Rhodes to call back to the red handprint he included in the Black Lives Matter street mural, was painted in response to Barkley Hendricks's "Dr. Kool" (1973) painting.[2] For this painting, Rhodes depicted a more contemporary black man who has just been "caught" being black in the light of America's criticism.[11] While the man is depicted as confident, even holding a peacock feather in his breast pocket to symbolize his pride in his Blackness, the style of clothing he is wearing could be seen as funerary. Rhodes intended "Red Handed" to show what happens to a black man who his targeted based on his outward appearance. "Big White System" was Rhodes's response to John Wesley Hardrick's "Little Brown Girl" (1927). For this response painting Rhodes painted what the reality of life likely would have been for the little brown girl who acted as the subject of Hardrick's painting. "Big White System" was meant to highlight the "omitted" historical context behind "Little Brown Girl," which was painted during the time in which the Ku Klux Klan was having a resurgence in Indiana.[12][13]

2022 Gainbridge

In 2024, Rhodes was one of five artists selected for the All Lanes Lead to Indy Art exhibit to welcome attendees of the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials in Indianapolis.[3]

His work was featured in the 2023 and 2024 editions of the BUTTER Art Fair. In a reflection on BUTTER's impact on the careers and visibility of Black artists, Rhodes note that the fair gives Black artists "a chance to tell our stories."[14]

In 2024, Rhodes was one of several artists featured in an exhibition, "Self-serenades." The event was billed as a collaboration between the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and GANGGANG.[15]

Influences

Butter, quote

Work

  • "Colored King" and "Woman of Paradise," We. The Culture at Newfields (2022-2023)[7]
  • PHS Philadelphia Flower Show Mural (2023)[10]
  • Work in Progress: Conversations about American Art (2023)[11]
  • "Monkey See, Monkey Do," BUTTER Art Fair, 2023.[16]
  • "Reasons" at the Indiana Memorial Union art collection, Indiana University, Bloomington.[17]

References

  1. ^ a b McGOWAN, CHLOE (2023-03-02). "'Taking up space': How the Eighteen Art Collective is changing the narrative". Indianapolis Recorder. Retrieved 2024-08-16.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Herndon, Natalya (2023-04-25). "Kyng Rhodes: Local Legend". discovernewfields.org. Retrieved 2024-08-31.
  3. ^ a b Lindquist, Dave (2024-04-12). "Five artists selected to create visuals for U.S. Olympic Swim Trials". Indianapolis Business Journal. Retrieved 2024-08-31.
  4. ^ Lindquist, David (2024-08-30). "The Benefits of Butter: Visual Artists Say Event Altered Their Career Trajectories". Indianapolis Business Journal. 45 (28): 1A, 22A, 23A – via EBSCOhost.
  5. ^ The Children's Museum of Indianapolis (2021-08-05). Art of Protest Mural Artist - Kyng Rhodes. Retrieved 2024-11-22 – via YouTube.
  6. ^ "Meet Kyng Rhodes". canvasrebel.com. 2023-01-16. Retrieved 2024-11-22.
  7. ^ a b "We. The Culture: Works by the Eighteen Art Collective". The Indianapolis Museum of Art Collection. Retrieved 2024-11-22.
  8. ^ Bongiovanni, Domenica (2022-09-23). "'We. The Culture': Inside the yearslong wait for Newfields show on Black artist collective". The Indianapolis Star. Retrieved 2024-11-22.
  9. ^ Bongiovanni, Domenica. "New campus name and 'dramatic change' are coming to the Indianapolis Museum of Art". The Indianapolis Star. Retrieved 2024-11-22.
  10. ^ a b McGOWAN, CHLOE (2023-03-02). "Mural by local Black artist to go to Philadelphia Flower Show". Indianapolis Recorder. Retrieved 2024-08-16.
  11. ^ a b c JACKSON, JADE (2023-06-01). ""Work in Progress: Conversations about American Art" at Newfields". Indianapolis Recorder. Retrieved 2024-08-16.
  12. ^ a b Newfields (2023-02-01). Newfields Speaker Series: A New Look At American Art with The Looking Glass Alliance. Retrieved 2024-11-27 – via YouTube.
  13. ^ "Looking Glass Alliance: Contributions by Kyng Rhodes" (PDF). discovernewfields.org. Retrieved 2024-11-27.
  14. ^ "'A chance to tell our stories' | A look at this weekend's BUTTER art fair". wthr.com. 2024-08-29. Retrieved 2024-08-31.
  15. ^ McGOWAN, CHLOE (2024-10-15). "ISO and GANGGANG team up for exhibition at Hilbert Circle Theatre". Indianapolis Recorder. Retrieved 2024-11-07.
  16. ^ "See the best of BUTTER Fine Art Fair 2023 at the Stutz". The Indianapolis Star. Retrieved 2024-08-31.
  17. ^ "IMU art collection continues to diversify with 3 new paintings added". news.iu.edu. Retrieved 2024-08-31.
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