Kaphar painted a portrait that appeared on the cover of TIME magazine in June 2020.
His 60″ x 60″ oil painting, titled Analogous Colors, features an African American mother holding her child. To complete the work, Kaphar cut out the canvas to show a mother’s loss: Floyd called out to his deceased mother during the 8 minutes and 46 seconds he was pinned to the ground by a Minneapolis police officer.
Read the poem he wrote to accompany the work at time.com/5847487/george-floyd-time-cover-titus-kaphar.
Kaphar’s work deconstructs history and memory simultaneously, twisting familiar images to uncover those who’ve suffered under the prejudices institutionalized by the “heroes” we revere.
“I’ve come to realize that all reproduction, all depiction is fiction – it’s simply a question of to what degree. As much as we try to speak to the facts of a historical incident, we often alter those facts, sometimes drastically, through the retelling itself.
“Understanding this has given me the freedom to manipulate, and change historical images in a way that recharges them for me. Artists throughout time have always embraced, whether consciously or unconsciously, a degree of fiction, in order to achieve the sentiment of the facts. Magritte’s Ceci n’est pas une pipe is one of my favorite reminders of how confounding it can be to get words, ideas and images to align.
“My desire to reconstruct history began while I was studying art history. What seemed to be obvious oversights in the canon were regularly understated, suppressed or ignored.”
Kaphar was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan and his work is often multidimensional and sculptural, with canvases slashed and dangling off the frame, or hanging over another painting.
Film
Celebrated painter Titus Kaphar turns his attention to filmmaking to incorporate the language of paint and canvas.
In Shut Up And Paint, Titus Kaphar looks to film as a medium in the face of an insatiable art market seeking to silence his activism.
The film documents an ethical crisis in the career of one of the art world’s shining stars, Titus Kaphar, as he struggles with the commodification of his work and the surrounding pressure to blunt his activism in the name of marketability. A Black American from humble beginnings, Kaphar rose to prominence via bold, provocative work that reconfigures and regenerates art history to include the African American subject.
Watch this powerful and compelling film at vimeo.com/779982589.
Exhibiting Forgiveness is a film about family, generational healing, and the power of forgiveness.
Utilizing his paintings to find freedom from his past, a Black artist on the path to success is derailed by an unexpected visit from his estranged father, a recovering addict desperate to reconcile. Together, they learn that forgetting might be a greater challenge than forgiving.
Meet the Artist 2024: Titus Kaphar on “Exhibiting Forgiveness”
This soulful, sophisticated, and beautifully crafted film tells the story of Tarrell (André Holland), an art star reckoning with his own traumatic childhood by creating powerful and transcendent paintings.
At the radiant heart of Exhibiting Forgiveness is Tarell’s artistic process, which illuminates how a creative practice can redeem illnesses of the soul, forge pathways toward regaining power over one’s own destiny, and forgive and transform despite the spiritual damage.
Exhibiting Forgiveness is from director, screenwriter, and producer Titus Kaphar and features André Holland, John Earl Jelks, Andra Day, and Aunjanue Ellis.
Learn more about Titus Kaphar at www.kapharstudio.com.