ANTHONY PEYTON YOUNG 

Being violent could cost me my body but so could not being violent enough. In his book “Between the World and Me”, Ta-Nehisi Coates mentions navigating this space between fear and survival. I pose the question of how we might move forward, conquer our fears and thrive all while addressing historical and contemporary issues in our society and communities in a meaningful in generative manner. Employing a hybrid of painting drawing in collage I focus on the methods of memorializing dealing with trauma and the spaces we use to activate these actions.

My most recent series are compound portraits of Black bodies. Combining images of contemptible collectible memorabilia, historical photographs, as well as black archetypes from literature and film, the work investigates fabrications and false conceptions, and honors the many men, women, and children who have lost their lives to racial discrimination. 

In previous work, I use portraiture as a tool to memorialize the numerous unarmed victims who have passed, their names all too often forgotten. These works incorporate symbolic materials such as bleach and gunpowder to challenge common notions about the black body that are branded into the black psyche, and explore the power of cultural imprinting delivered by family, friends, the media and more violent, destructive means including policing and incarceration. 

Anthony Peyton Young is a Boston based artist born and raised in Charleston, WV. Working primarily in painting, drawing, and collage, Young’s work explores identity, ancestry and memorialization with heavy influences from Black Americana, film, and his home state West Virginia. He earned his B.A. from West Virginia State University and his M.F.A. from School of the Museum of Fine Arts/ Tufts University. Young has won awards such as the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University Traveling Fellowship and the Walter Feldman Fellowship for Emerging Artist. His work is included in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and Juliette Art Museum. He has also been featured in publications such as Gay Letter Magazine, Evergreen Review, and The Boston Globe. Young has presented his work at School of the Museum of Fine Arts, and Harvard’s Black Portraiture Conference.