Black Art Student Empowerment at VCU (otherwise known as B.A.S.E.) recently held their fourth annual showcase at The Anderson. Many VCUarts students participated, including Photography + Film students Daniel Diasgranados and D’Anna Johnson, as well as Art Foundation student Charles Stapleton.
VCU student Charles Stapleton revealed an intimate part of his life in his piece “Semicolon.” Stapleton’s piece was an exact replica of his room from 2012 to 2014, when he suffered from depression.
“Music got me out of it, so essentially that’s pretty much my whole take on what depression really feels like deep down inside the worries, the messiness, the disorientation. All that is pretty much what I felt,” he said. “And I feel like a lot of people feel that, so I kind of wanted to give artwork that people can really relate to and not feel like they’re all alone with it.”
Stapleton said BASE is all about empowering black artists and giving black students a voice. He said the artists involved are talented and use art as a vehicle to express their struggles, giving people something to relate to.
Read the full article in the Commonwealth Times.
Image: The You are Special Project by D’Anna Johnson features black models with different skill levels being vulnerable in front of the camera. Photo by Raelyn Fines. Credit via Commonwealth Times.
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