Black Compositional Thought: 15 Paintings for the Plantationocene
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New Orleans Museum of Art 1 Collins C. Diboll Circle, New Orleans, Louisiana 70124

Torkwase Dyson
"Up South 3 (Water Table)" 2018, acrylic on canvas. Photo by Art Evans, courtesy of the artist.
In her work, abstract artist Torkwase Dyson considers physicalities—waterways, architecture, objects, and geographies—and employs a unique vocabulary of abstract lines, forms, shapes, and edges informed by her theory of Black Compositional Thought to reimagine them into networks of liberation for black bodies.
In her series Black Compositional Thought: 15 Paintings for the Plantationocene, produced for the New Orleans Museum of Art, Dyson explores design systems of regional architecture, water infrastructure, oil and gas industries, and the physical impacts of global warming. She also examines the "plantationoscene," the continued legacy of plantation economies and how they relate to environmental and infrastructure concerns of today.
Using abstraction as a tool, and existing structural realities as a starting point, she reconstructs and reimagines the political landscapes of a world designed upon inequality.
Black Compositional Thought: 15 Paintings for the Plantationocene is on exhibit at NOMA from January 24–April 19. noma.org.
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