Headlands Center for the Arts

Artist Statement

I create autobiographical paintings that address my personal Black queer relationship to time, space, and material. My practice draws from a diverse field of research ranging from abstraction to 90’s Black Inches magazines, family photos to found domestic objects, self-portraiture to autobiography. These points of interest become anchors in my ongoing exploration of Black queer bodily visibility and absence. Central to my work is an imagining of how painting might be used as a tool of resistance against historical erasure and inaccuracy.

While at Headlands

While at the Headlands, I hope to focus on completing a body of paintings that further develops some of the ideas I have been exploring in my most recent work. I am looking forward to what inspiration will come directly from Headlands and its community and the ways in which this will shape my work. Another focus of mine during the residency will be networking and engaging with the Bay Area’s arts community in an effort to continue establishing a career in the area.

Banner image: Warith Taha, The Body at Rest, 2019; Acrylic on constructed stretcher; 32.7″ x 46.2″; © Warith Taha