Newark Artist Examines Race Relations, Objectification Of Black Women

NEWARK, NJ — Dominique Duroseau, a Newark-based artist born in Chicago and raised in Haiti, will hold a solo exhibition, “Black Things in White Spaces,” at Gallery Aferro, 73 Market Street in Newark, from Sept. 23 to Oct. 28.

An opening reception will be held at the gallery from 7 to 10 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 23. For more information visit aferro.org or dominiqueduroseau.com.

According to a gallery news release:

“Dominique Duroseau’s solo exhibition, “Black Things in White Spaces” is a continuum of her recent interrogations into race relations in the Americas, and the residual tensions formed from centuries of enslavement of black peoples, especially with regard to the objectification of black women. Duroseau delves further into this fertile artistic ground to consider the phenomenon of the commodification of black culture by mainstream society. Her work reflects a particular unease with the duality of American culture that commercializes African Americans, while concomitantly exhibiting indifference to their struggles. It is against this socio-political backdrop that Duroseau’s spoken word pieces, performances, prints and sculptures reflect upon America’s uneasy relationship with people of color – a relationship that simultaneously denigrates and adulates black culture. Dominique Duroseau’s work engages viewers in a discourse about race, racism, race relations and sexism in a country replete with its own unique arrangements of systemic institutionalized injustice towards African Americans. Her work often includes historical references to novels, interviews, newspaper headlines and package design to put forth her ideas on race relations both past and present. Despite confronting the uncomfortable truths of American race relations, her work is meant to posit constructive solutions that mobilize an engaged and informed citizenry, comfortable speaking about what was previously unspoken in the past."

Duroseau is a Newark-based artist born in Chicago and raised in Haiti. She attended Kean University where she earned her Master of Arts in Fine Arts with a concentration in studio arts and New Jersey Institute of Technology where she received a B.Arch. in Architecture. Her work has recently been on view at El Museo del Barrio, The New Museum, Rush Arts and the Dumbo Art Festival. Other exhibitions, performances, and screenings include SATELLITE ART and PULSE Play in Miami; The Brooklyn Museum, BronxArtSpace, Rush Arts Gallery and Smack Mellon in New York City; Index Art Center, Project for Empty Space and Paul Robeson Galleries in Newark, NJ. She is an artist-in-residence at Gallery Aferro and a current Fellow at A.I.R. Gallery in Brooklyn. She curated “RAW FORMS FORUM,” a Performance Art group exhibition, at the Newark Museum.

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Image: Dominique Duroseau / Gallery Aferro