Irrepressible Soul: Online Scholarship Exhibition

Irrepressible Soul is a collaborative project, culturally relevant exhibition, and community-oriented event with a variety of programming aimed to reflect on and celebrate the complexity and intersectionality of different Black experiences and identities. Through immersive and culturally responsive exhibitions, Irrepressible Soul hopes to encourage introspection on the nature of Blackness through community arts expression and open dialogue.

Accessibility and equity of the arts are core pillars of Irrepressible Soul. As part of this initiative, twenty-one Black artists were selected to be featured in the online element of the project, Irrepressible Soul: Online Scholarship Exhibition. Two of the selected artists received a $400 scholarship contributing to the cost of artistic expression. The scholarship recipients are Iman Clark and Alek Shabazz.

Iman Clark

Transitioning On

Dance Film, 2:55 minutes

2020

Shot by Jose Venta

"In honor of my Great Aunt Eva who passed away during my first month of moving to Miami. This film is also an exploration of how water functions throughout our lives."

Alek Shabazz

you drank til I was empty

colored pencil and mixed media

2023

"I seek to use my work as a means to embody the trials and tribulations of my endless journey of self-growth. Dreams are a representations of self-reflection and evaluation, meaning anything we have psychically possessed is never completely gone. With this in mind, I seek to explore the connection between dreams and memory and how that affects how we interact with the world and, more importantly, ourselves.

Several pieces are inspired by a specific event, emotion, or personal encounter, and then translated onto canvas based on those sentiments. With this in mind, each piece undergoes consistent construction and destruction until harmony is achieved.

The materials incorporated range from colored pencil and graphite to silkscreen printing and oil pastel. Vibrant pigments are employed to provide balance and contrast between the figures in each piece. The repetition of adding and subtracting the oil pastel from the paper evenly distributes the pigments, thus leaving a smooth and flat 2D surface.

This is used to contrast the 3D elements provided by any fabric and collage incorporated. By layering 2D and 3D surfaces, the two come together like a puzzle piece, becoming one. The end result is dimension and texture, allowing me to achieve my ultimate goal: balance."