Chicago-born, New York-based artist and poet Diamond Stingily’s work considers issues regarding racial and gender identity, as seen through the lens of her own life, family, and childhood memories. Working with objects and images from her immediate surroundings, such as wooden doors, chains, synthetic hair, or dolls, Stingily points to the shared experience of the violence of racism in American suburban life. For her solo exhibition, Stingily’s point of departure is her family’s historical trajectory from being farmers to being athletes. This transition, from country-and-field to track-and-field, stands in for a broader American story of personal ambition in the face of racial violence. Stingily developed this body of work as a site-specific installation using sound, video, and sculpture at the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco on view January 15 – March 30, 2019.

(Excerpt and image above selected from grant proposal. Artwork is copyright of the artist.)