Johnnie Chatman
Self Portrait, Cascade Falls, 2020
Estimated Value: $1,600

Archival pigment print
18 x 12 inches
Unframed
Edition 8/10
Signed, verso
Donated by the artist.

Chatman’s series of self portraits i forgot where we were… constructs an archive and body of imagery that explores ideas and notions around landscape and its relationship with black history. This chapter explores the American West which has often been defined by binary and reductionist grids of thought and iconography. Like the black body, the West is a complex, unstable signifier given meaning by those who have lived within it, passed through it, conquered it, settled, farmed, militarized, urbanized, and dreamed it.

Black men are often relegated in media and art to the positions of the prisoner, gang member, statistic, protestor, etc. While blackness is commonly shown as a sedentary "object" limited to the confines of an urban environment, pigeonholed between narratives of resistance or resilience.

With this portion of the series, Chatman explores how vantage points across the West act as beacons for explorations of culture, history and consumerism, as histories have been compressed into marketable cultural capital for international gazers. In pursuing this route the project explores the ambiguity and multiplicity of blackness oscillating between a space of romance and critique, objective research and personal narrative. The project will continue until he has created a portrait in every state.

About the Artist:
Johnnie Chatman

Johnnie Chatman is a Californian lens-based artist residing in New York. He holds a Master of Fine Arts in Photography, Video & Related Media from the School of Visual Arts in New York and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Chatman's work has been featured in exhibitions across the United States including at the De Young Museum (San Francisco, CA), Claremont Museum of Art (Claremont, CA), and Black Box Gallery (Portland, OR). His work has been featured in publications including PDN EDU, All The Best Alice, Rucksack Magazine, Dear Dave and Zoetrope All-Story. Chatman is the founder of Terms & Conditions, a showcase of experimentation in moving image.

Recent exhibitions include Another West at Fraenkel Gallery (San Francisco, CA), FORECAST 2019 Annual Survey Exhibition at SF Camerawork (San Francisco, CA), and Magnetic West: Enduring Allure of the American West at Figge Art Museum (Davenport, Iowa).

Website: chatman.com
Instagram: @the_space_between