Women of the Future
One woman powers herself with a solar panel. Another wears a neon sign in her Afro. In the future as in the past, identity is never one-dimensional.
Interview by Karolle Rabarison
The Morning News: 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. Continue reading ↓
Featured here are images from “Women,” Robert Pruitt’s solo exhibit at The Studio Museum in Harlem, NY. The show is a series of large-scale portraits of black women, drawn with conté crayons on brown paper, and continues through Oct. 27, 2013. Images used with permission, all rights reserved, all images © copyright the artist.
Interview continued
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.