Spotlight: Isiah Powell-Taylor

Early in the semester, current SPQ student Isiah Powell-Taylor was interviewed virtually. The interview is transcribed below! You can also read Isiah’s bio here

How does SPQ support your mission as a creator?

SPQ provides an array of specialized staff who excel in centering the voices of people of color. Unlike my past education, I do not feel alienated in my own classes: there is a focus put on me that I have never experienced in academia. 

Who influences your work? 

My family, my work is based on my personal family archive, so without them I would not have any work to produce. Specifically, I was raised by strong, hard working black women, so much of my work is based on those they interacted with in the past. Currently I am drawing all portraits in my mother’s yearbook, and making a triptych collage for my grandmother.

What should I highlight about your work? 

It is always archival-based work mainly from my grandmother, mother, and aunt. I retell the past through my own lens. My work helps me feel a closer connection to my blackness, whereas in the past my education stifled much of my identity. I want to influence young black artists to strive to make it in the art world. 

Please provide 3 or more pictures of your favorite work(s) made during your enrollment in SPQ. Tell us about them. 

Overbrook Choir makes a reference to a yearbook photo of my mother’s high school choir (which she was a part of). I pulled in a lot of religious iconography for this piece specifically from Britain to highlight aspects of colonization which, at the time the photo was taken, are still encircling these graduates. Choir at my mother’s school was highly connected to gospel worship, and I wanted to make a cheeky nudge at the aspects of religion-specifically Christianity, which still decide the worth of black communities. 

We thank Isiah Powell-Taylor for giving us more insight into his art practice!