
Drawing inspiration from life, the black imagination, and interrogations of memory, Imani is an artist-intellectual from the south side of Chicago. Following their studies at Princeton and in conjunction with their current pursuit of a PhD at Columbia University, Imani’s art practice engages the critical nexus of theory and praxis. Their theoretical work circles around the erotic and violent entanglements of black performance, gender, and world-making. Their paintings and drawings explore the capacities of ink, watercolor, mixed-media, depth, and scale to formulate a grammar of black flesh. This allows them to flesh out encounters with the ever-becoming, nebulous form we consider “the black body.”
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Exhibitions
2020
Atlas
Broodthaers Society of America, Harlem, NY2019
Black Alumni Conference
Princeton University, Princeton University2018
Senior Thesis Exhibition the Program In Visual Arts
Princeton University2017
Junior Exhibition the Program In Visual Arts,
Princeton UniversityDigital Photography Exhibition in the Program in Visual Arts,
Princeton University -
Education
Current
Columbia University, New York
PhD in English and Comparative Literature2018
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
B.A. in African American Studies (High Honors)2015
Princeton in Beijing
Princeton University and Beijing Normal University at Beijing, China -
Awards
Fellow, Project 55 Fellowship, New York
Fellow, Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, Princeton University
Certificate Recipient, Visual Arts Certificate Program, Lewis Center for the Arts—Princeton
UniversityAwardee, Martin A. Dale Scholarship, Pasadena, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York City