PREACH

Kent builds unorthodox relationships between many layers of historically authentic materials that convey specific content. His collection of mixed media paintings, bricolages, drawings, and videos asks difficult questions about the roles that we play within society; inequality for some within a community; race, and assimilation; and art’s potential as an agent of change. 

All of these artworks were originally informed by images of Black Americans organizing and demonstrating in order to deny rights for their fellow citizens. For more than three years, as Kent experimented with this material, the historical scope of the project had broadened; the body of work now connects the distant past, present, and near future. 

Kent repurposes historical objects such as 19th century historical chairs, which serve both as sculptural forms and as sources of pre-civil war ancestral-picked cotton for mixed media artworks. Other raw materials included a 1959 SUNROC water fountain, images of mammies and minstrelsy, and vintage Playboy magazines, all juxtaposed with typography. The vision for equality within these works remains expansive, defined only as equality for all mankind.