Current Book

My in-progress manuscript uses visual analysis and ethnographic methods to understand the contemporary practices of emerging Black Bay Area artists who navigate racial capitalism in the art market. In the Black: Figures of Racial Capitalism examines the practices of four contemporary emerging Black artists rooted in the California Bay Area. Woody de Othello, Stuart Robertson, Trina Robinson, and Adrian Burrell –each of whom are case studies for individual chapters that examine the financial pressures they face while making their art. Taken together, this project highlights the creative strategies Black Bay Area emerging artists implement to navigate the art market, and it proposed how we might better trace the contours of racial capitalism, and its impact on the imagination.