Sheldon Scott
Sweet Boy, 2013.
I work in performance, sculpture, spoken narrative, photography, ephemera, immersive installation, and written word. My work surveys the intersection of race, economics, and sexuality with a critical lens on the construction of black masculinity, while assessing the social taxes levied on black bodies and psyches. These portraits are sourced from psychological introspection and physical commentary that offers biography and identity to challenge not only what we do, but why we do.
As a body of work that carries many voices through multiple media, I seek understanding of identities of race, sexuality, and economics with the use of visual metaphor.
Self portrait as John Henry (Hammer), 2014.
Self portrait as John Henry (machine), 2014.
The scourge of slavery is a theme that reverberates throughout the installations in Scott’s northwest studio, which acts as a pit stop for his works.
“The mythology around John Henry (African American folk hero) can take several forms, but Scott is most interested in investigating how, historically, the objectification of the black body reduces the body to a mere mechanical tool. The wholesale reconstituting of the black body as a machine—stripping the body of its humanistic elements—required not only the cultural buy-in of our ancestors, but also the direct participation of our governmental systems. In this regard Scott presents a biting critique of how our social order came to fruition. But also heavily alluded to within this critique are the reasons why this subjugation was “necessary”: it was specifically designed to undergird an economic order that championed maximum profits with minimal labor costs.”
(quote of Eric Hope on September 20, 2016 in EastCityArt)
A Man Ain’t Nothing but a Man (detail of performance/artifact), 2014.
Precious in Da Wade, A Portrait of the Geechee, 2016
After years as a practicing Psychotherapist, he began a creative life as a Storyteller, Artist, Actor, and Writer in 2005. He has since performed four sold-out solo storytelling shows in the Capital Fringe Theatre Festival and various venues including Busboys & Poets, and the Hirshhorn Museum. He has exhibited his Fine-Arts and Performance Art works at (e)merge art fair, WPA Select Auction, Arlington Arts Center, Delaware State University and Art Miami. He is represented by ConnerSmith Contemporary Gallery for his Fine-Art work. His upcoming book project, a memoir, “Shrimp & Griots”, is based on his storytelling narratives of the same name. Howard Yoon of Ross & Yoon Literary Agency represents Scott’s written works.