Finding Comfort in Darkness (2021)

“My job as an artist is to tell the truth in how I capture a subject’s spirit and emotions. My art is about the intersection of darkness and light in people. I am interested in creating space and distance that feels like the familiar world around us but is ambiguous, general and abstracted. In my imaginary world I create visual sorrow and pain that intersect, overlap, steers emotions and ultimately create a sense of visual distance and depth of our darkness and light that we can identify ourselves with. I aim to create work from a place of darkness, often gravitating towards death and rebirth, beauty and decay. The aim of this work is to create awareness about the stigma misconceptions and stereotypes about depression in black society, and in black men specifically.”

– Siyolisi Bani