Photo Courtesy of CJ Benninger
Kaleigh Blevins (b. Detroit, 2000) is an artist living and working in Detroit, whose work examines the way Black identity is shaped in America, and the effects of this experience. In her work, familiar images are distorted to illustrate the state of uncertainty and isolation many Black people exist in. She recently received her BFA in Painting from Wayne State University. Her work has been exhibited across Metro Detroit and in New American Paintings magazine. She is currently an MFA candidate at Cranbrook Academy of Art.
My work is about Black people trying to understand their existence as they walk the path to self-actualization, using liminality as a ground for exploring the psychological effects of this experience. Liminality refers to a state of transition or in betweenness. This is typically in relation to a rite of passage, but the concept can be interpreted and applied very broadly. Black Americans exist in a liminal state because of our history as the descendants of enslaved people from West Africa, and our tenuous American citizenship. I am interested in the politics of representation, the role of the viewer, and Black subjectivity. I use domestic spaces as sites for introspection, presenting them in a distorted, flat manner to reflect and emphasize the incongruence between Black people and the environments they inhabit in society.
My recent work seeks to further explore liminality by placing figures in sparsely decorated dated environments that are dated yet suspended in time. They are surrounded by repeating motifs found in typical Midwestern homes like tile and wood paneling. The lack of clear end or beginning evokes a sense of stalled progress. The domestic space is a psychological landscape as well as a physical barrier. The figures themselves exist in a washy, almost corporeal state, their skin an unnatural hue. This reflects the layered, transitional nature and history of Black American identity. The figures are found amid introspection, aware of an outside viewer’s presence, but keeping some things to themselves.