Tavares Strachan: Magnificent Darkness

In the Seward Gallery, a vast and transportive earthen floor grounds two near-life-sized ceramic sculptures, Matthew Henson (Hunter’s Shirt Stacked with Football and Spear) and Andrea Crabtree (Potter’s Shirt Stacked with Diver’s Helmet), representing the figures of Matthew Henson, the African American explorer who discovered the North Pole, and Andrea Motley Crabtree, the first African American female diver for the U.S. Navy. Themes intrinsic to Strachan’s practice—ranging from human aspiration to the chronicle of elided histories—are evoked here through depictions of Arctic exploration and deep-sea discovery. Clay, as integral to human evolution and the creation story, is found repeatedly throughout the exhibition, from the Seward Gallery floor to the numerous ceramic sculptures on view.

In an intimate space off the main lobby sits Amina (A Map of the Crown), a bronze bust sculpture adorned with a traditional West African hairstyle. The closeness of these materials offers an insightful reconciliation of the distance between the deeply personal, political, and present nature of hair and the venerable qualities bestowed upon bronze sculpture—some of the earliest and most accomplished bronze works date to Africa in the 10th century.

A new series of paintings also debuts here. Mind Field No. 1 sits in dialogue with Amina, together begetting references ranging from the history of the monochrome to metaphorical notions of hair as a protective layer, symbol of knowledge, and means for communication and transport.

Strachan was born in 1979 in Nassau, Bahamas, and currently lives and works between New York City and Nassau. He received a BFA in Glass from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2003 and an MFA in Sculpture from Yale University in 2006. He draws on both the resources and community of his birthplace, dividing his time between his studio in New York and Nassau, where he has established an art studio and scientific research platform B.A.S.E.C. (Bahamas Aerospace and Sea Exploration Center) and OKU, a not-for-profit community project encompassing an artist residency and exhibition spaces, a scholarship program, and after-school creative programs.

Strachan’s work has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions including You Belong Here, Prospect 3. Biennial, New Orleans (2014); The Immeasurable Daydream, Biennale de Lyon, Lyon (2013); Polar Eclipse, The Bahamas National Pavilion 55th Venice Biennale, Venice (2013); Seen/Unseen, Undisclosed Exhibition, New York (2011); Orthostatic Tolerance: It Might Not Be Such a Bad Idea if I Never Went Home Again, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge (2011); among others.

He has been the recipient of numerous awards including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation fellowship (2022), Artist in Residence at the Getty Research Institute (2019-2020), the Frontier Art Prize (2018), and the Allen Institute’s inaugural artist-in-residence (2018), LACMA Art + Technology Lab Artist Grant (2014), Tiffany Foundation Grant (2008), Grand Arts Residency Fellowship (2007), and Alice B. Kimball Fellowship (2006). In his TED talk. (This link opens in a new tab). in April 2023, Strachan discussed the need to restore lost stories, as exemplified within his work, The Encyclopedia of Invisibility.