Throughout January, Studio Sessions explores the balancing act between isolation and community with a series entitled CLOISTRAL
WORDS BY ALLISON CHOW
ART BY KEZNA DALZ
What do you think of when you think of good art? Does it lift your spirits? Draw you deeper into the world of a creator you love? What form does it take? Is it a spoken word, a cracked face delicately outlined with egg-wash centuries old, or carved from ancient marble? Where does your sense of “art” come from? These are some of the questions borne of the conversation between Cannopy Magazine (formerly smART Magazine) and Kezna Dalz — AKA Teenadult — a multidisciplinary artist based in Montréal. At the core of her artistry is the power of the unintentional political act of being yourself. Her work is part of a swelling global tidal wave of artists on a collision course with the Western art canon, challenging notions of power in visual arts regarding class, race, and gender.
Entrancing the viewer with loose, energetic strokes pairing bright teals with luscious fuchsias, Dalz constructs a provocative neo-expressionist meditation. Within this visual feast, she is also serving themes of radical self-acceptance, feminism, sensuality, racial justice─on a platter of pop culture.
Working with murals, paintings, and digital and traditional illustrations, her activism in the greater Montréal community is expressed in everything from her response to the Black Lives Matter movement to her illustrations in “Dear Black Girls”, with author Shanice Nicole. Making art for “a human collective that cannot function in division,” Dalz’s art often features Black women and girls, their faces lovingly crafted to embody a nuanced range of feelings from a rich inner world.
Recently, Dalz has released a series of reimagined classics by the likes of Gustav Klimt and Sandro Botticelli. Engaging the same hopeful symmetry articulated by Botticelli, Dalz recasts these figures of myths and legends in her iconic Black and brown bodies, informed by striking modernity that challenges these canonical strictures.
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