Communal Resurrection: The Art of Steve Prince explores the multivalent ways in which African Americans have utilized their bodies, voice, music, and imagination to craft modes of resistance in the face of a stultifying system that was designed to strip them of their name, their culture, and their faith.
The work candidly peers into the heart of our nation by representing the human experience through metaphors, historical narrative, and visual text. Each image is laden with symbolism embodying a story of resistance, survival, and creativity in the face of hegemony. Communal Resurrection is America’s story of how a people made a way out of no way and transformed the world with a sound and a movement that could not be silenced or suppressed.
As a native of New Orleans, Steve’s art is steeped in the rich rue of the Crescent City’s traditions, that merge the syncopation of jazz with the didactic voice of hip-hop culture. The philosophy of his work hinges on the funerary tradition of the Dirge and the Second Line.
For Prince, the funerary tradition is synonymous with loss and recovery (renewal), which is infused in his ideology about how we must openly grapple with the hurt and the scars of the past in order to foster a Communal Resurrection for our nation.
Steve A. Prince is a native of New Orleans, Louisiana, and he currently resides in Williamsburg, Virginia. He is the Director of Engagement and Distinguished Artist in Residence at the Muscarelle Museum at William and Mary. Prince received his BFA from Xavier University of Louisiana and his MFA in Printmaking and Sculpture from Michigan State University. Prince is a mixed media artist, master printmaker, lecturer, educator, and art evangelist. He has taught middle school, high school, community college, 4-year public and 4-year private, and has conducted workshops internationally in various media.
He has worked with several churches of various denominations across the nation spreading a message of hope and renewal philosophically rooted in the cathartic nature of the Jazz Funerary tradition of New Orleans. To Prince, art media is like languages to a linguist as he adeptly tithers between two-dimensional and three-dimensional artistic practices while working with virtually every age bracket and multiple ethnicities. He is represented by Eyekons Gallery in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Black Art in America in Columbus, Georgia, and Zucot Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia. Prince has created several public works including an 8’ x 8’ mixed media work titled “Lemonade: A Picture of America” at William and Mary commemorating the first 3 African American resident students in 1967 at the college, a 15’ stainless steel kinetic sculpture titled “Song for John” located in Hampton, Virginia and a 4’ x 32’ communal woodcut titled, “Links,” commemorating the 400th anniversary of 1619 and the first documented Africans at Point Comfort (Hampton, Virginia.)
Prince has received several honors for his art and scholarship including the 2010 Teacher of the Year award from the City of Hampton and he is a 2020 recipient of a VMFA (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts) Grant. Prince has shown his art internationally in various solo, group, and juried exhibitions. He has participated in several residencies including Artist in Residence at Segura Arts Center at Notre Dame University, Pyramid Atlantic Art Center in Hyattsville, Maryland, the Atlanta Printmakers Studio, and the University of Iowa to name a few.
Follow Steve Prince at his Instagram @onefishstudio
ABOUT THE GALLERY
At the Gallery at W83, we cultivate art and community on the Upper West Side, providing space for personal engagement, community conversations, and spiritual reflection, and collaborate with local artists from diverse backgrounds to explore universal themes of culture, community, and faith.
We bring together different perspectives in this space as an invitation to join in conversations we believe are vital to us all. We affirm the artist's right to express their views independently, and the views expressed by the artists are their own and do not necessarily represent the Gallery at W83 or Redeemer West Side.