Venus Undone
CYDNEY CAMP
Exhibition opening Friday, November 7th
"I am looking to find an innovative language that would serve my desire to study a more focused area of black American culture that intersects at religion, the deep south, and personal family histories.
These works hope to specifically address what I term being “Covered in Black”. When I speak on being covered, I am talking about the prayers, pleadings, and rituals that are practiced in the black community to offer a protection of those in the family and communities. Some of these practices are calling on the ancestors, the laying on of hands, alter calls, morning prayers, and the never-ending river of advice given to black people on how-to live-in blackness safely. The work is also considering who my personal saints are and trying to find God in people. "
- Rashaun Rucker
Cydney Camp
Photo: CJ Benninger
Cydney Camp (b. 1994, Detroit) is an artist whose oil paintings and drawings embody the diversity of Black life.
She imbues her works with an aura of power and tranquility through a vibrant color palette, often introducing elements of abstraction, forming dreamlike compositions. Many of her scenes reflect moments of peace among Black figures, positioning leisure as an act of protest against marginalization, particularly in regards to Black femininity. As a whole, her works engender a reality outside the exploitative extraction of the Black body that pervades our broader cultural ethos.
Camp has exhibited across Detroit and Michigan, including at K.O. Gallery, Norwest Gallery, Ann Arbor Art Center, Center for Detroit Arts & Culture, Detroit Fiber Works, and many more. She lives and works in Hamtramck, Detroit.