Who are the women in your drawings?
Robert Pruitt:Friends of mine, my girlfriend, her friends. Once I start drawing, however, that specificity recedes a bit. The figures start to occupy a larger but somewhat more general space. There’s a universe I’m trying illustrate and fill up with these beings.
TMN:Multiple times I’ve seen your work described as Afrofuturism, and you as an Afrofuturist. What do these labels mean to you?
RP:That term can be constricting but I have always loved the sound of it. For me it’s about how I place us back into our own narratives, and attempt to un-other ourselves. I am interested in changing the center of the conversations we’re having.
TMN:Art aside, what’s your favorite thing to do in Houston?
RP:I’m very much a homebody, hermit. My time with my peers is what I get excited about the most. Really mundane outings to coffee shops and such. Although, a bunch of us recently hung out at The Flat, an after hours lounge co-owned by DJ Sun here in Houston. That place is super-chill.
TMN:You’re also working on a comic book. How did you get into that kind of storytelling?
RP:Yeah, we just finished that project, and we hope to make it public soon. I’m working with writer Mat Johnson who was the actual storyteller. This sort of sequential art-making is still new to me, but I was raised reading comics, so there are some aspects that felt second-nature.
TMN:Do you collect anything?
RP:I have collected comics off and on most of my life. Not really collecting anything at the moment.
TMN:What makes a piece of art important?
RP:Lord, this question is too much. I can answer for my own work. I feel like it’s doing its thing if it successfully engages a viewer’s imagination.
TMN:Right on.
