Shori Sims

Artist Statement

Historically, my artistic practice has been rooted in the Black experience as a lens through which to re-imagine media culture in America. Most vitally in my art, I am thinking about Black ontology – the truth of what it means to be African American in the 21st century – with myself as the primary subject, speaking through the visual language of the Web. I am utilizing the knowledge archived in media along with my own lived experience to help construct an understanding of Black identity that goes beyond the surface. I utilize sound, moving image, and performance as well as sculpture to represent the range of one Black experience as contained in myself. I am interested in what self-portraiture means as a Black person now, and ways of expanding that language of self-portraiture and autobiography to represent bodies deemed less acceptable by society. Though my work is based first in the experience of self, my ultimate goal is to tap into universal human feelings that others can relate to regardless of their background.