Draft:Kyng Rhodes

Kyng Rhodes
Alma mater	Vincennes University, 2016
Occupation	Artist
Known for	Black Lives Matter street mural
Website	https://www.kyngrhodes.com/

Nathaniel Rhodes, known as Kyng Rhodes, is an American painter, graphic designer and muralist based in Indianapolis. His work has been featured in the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Flower Show, Gainbridge Fieldhouse, the 2024 U.S. Olympic Swim Trials, and at BUTTER art fair. As member of the Eighteen Collective, he contributed to Black Lives Matter street mural (Indianapolis).

Early life and education

Rhodes's artistic endeavors started at the age of three after he rifled through his mother's cosmetic products and then proceeded to use them as his medium when drawing on the walls and furniture of his home. In an interview with Newfields, Rhodes noted that his mother believed these pieces to be better than the artwork you might expect your average 3-year-old to produce. Rhodes graduated from Arsenal Tech High School in 2012 and went on to attend college at Vincennes University. In college, Rhodes pursued graphic design intending to find a happy medium between corporate and creative work. Rhodes graduated from Vincennes University in 2016.

Career

After college, Rhodes began his graphic design career through freelance work before being hired on to work at a marketing company. During the summer of 2020, Rhodes participated in one of Indianapolis's Black Lives Matter protests while holding up a painting he created depicting a fist. Here he was discovered by Malina Simone Bacon and Alan Bacon, the co-founders of GANGGANG, who offered to purchase his painting. Rhodes rejected their offer at the time, however, the trio still stayed in touch after the chance encounter, leading to Rhodes' invitation to participate in the Black Lives Matter street mural in Indianapolis.

Rhodes chose to paint the letter "B" in the Indianapolis Black Lives Matter street mural in the summer of 2020. For his depiction of the letter, he was inspired by Kente fabric to create the pattern of colors that he used to symbolize privileged lives (green), unprivileged lives (red), and the systematic division in between them (blue). The artist also included images on his letter of a red handprint and Afro pick, respectively symbolizing all the lives lost in Indianapolis due to police brutality and the "coarseness" of African American's hair and lives. Rhodes painted the mural alongside seventeen fellow black artists who all collectively became known as the Eighteen Collective. The marketing company Rhodes still worked for at the time fired him after the mural's completion claiming that he was bringing negative attention to their company and causing them to lose clients. With all the new artistic opportunities arising for Rhodes after the Black Lives Matter street mural he decided to trade in his graphic design career for that of a full-time artist.

In 2022, Rhodes was chosen to be a part of the new Gainbridge Fieldhouse galleries. This project incorporated historical photographs and commissioned artwork into Gainbridge Fieldhouse for the purpose of showing the history of basketball in Indiana. As one of the twenty-two artists selected for this project, Rhodes painted a series of pieces depicting Pacers' icons from the American Basketball Association era of the team in floral environments. Rhodes's paintings are located on the Key Bank Suites Level of the building. A free open house called "The Art of the Game" was held at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on October 10th, 2022, to display the new works of art.

The Eighteen Collective were invited to the Indianapolist Museum of Art at Newfields to have a year-long exhibit that would display their individual pieces outside of the mural. This exhibit, titled "We. The Culture," was up in the museum from September 2022 until September 2023, and it included two paintings by Rhodes: "Colored King" and "Woman in Paradise". Rhodes's collaboration with Newfields branched out from the singular exhibition after the museum was chosen to be a guest exhibitor at the Philidelphia Flower Show. For this show the museum brought on Rhodes to create a mural that would highlight the concept of art in nature, which the museum had attempted to embody through their 2017 rebrand. For this piece Rhodes painted birds spreading seeds over a garden and into places where they previously were not "allowed to grow" as a symbolic representation of how he expected to see Newfields's connection with the underrepresented artists in the community grow. The mural was titled "Newfound Fields" by Rhodes and was made up of eighteen 4-foot by 8-foot panels painted by the artist in a little over a month. The 2023 Philidelphia Flower show took place from March 4th through the 12th. Newfields walked away from the show with The Philadelphia Trophy, The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) Council Trophy, and the PHS gold medal.

On May 27th, 2023, Newfields reopened their American galleries under the title "Work in Progress: Conversations about American Art" and it featured two of Rhodes' paintings: "Big White System" (2022) and "Red Handed" (2022). For this installation Newfields highered on a select few local individuals to reimagine this gallery and add context to visual artwork in order to better represent the multifaceted reality of American history. The team called themselves "The Looking Glass Alliance" and it included Nasreen Khan, Tatjana Rebelle, Jordan Ryans, Bobby Young, and Rhodes himself. Rhodes contributed to the development of "Work in Progress" by painting two pieces in response to preexisting paintings in the Newfields collection with the aim of filling in the blanks in the original painting's narrative. "Red Handed," titled by Rhodes to call back to the red handprint he included in the Black Lives Matter street mural, was painted in response to Barkley Hendricks's "Dr. Kool" (1973) painting. For this painting, Rhodes depicted a more contemporary black man who has just been "caught" being black in the light of America's criticism. While the man is depicted as confident, even holding a peacock feather in his breast pocket to symbolize the pride he has in his Blackness, the style of clothing he is wearing could be seen as funerary. Rhodes intended "Red Handed" to show what happens to a black man who is targeted based on his outward appearance. "Big White System" was Rhodes's response to John Wesley Hardrick's "Little Brown Girl" (1927). For this response painting Rhodes painted what the reality of life likely would have been for the little brown girl who acted as the subject of Hardrick's painting. "Big White System" was meant to highlight the "omitted" historical context behind "Little Brown Girl," which was painted during a time in which the Ku Klux Klan was having a resurgence in Indiana.

In 2024, Rhodes was selected to be a part of the All Lanes Lead to Indy Art Project. The Indy Arts Council, Indiana Sports Corp. and USA Swimming collaborated in this project for the purpose of choosing five artists to be tasked with creating their own original artwork that would welcome attendees of the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials in Indianapolis. Joy Hernandez, Lucie Rice, Mary Mindiola, and Monroe Bush and Rhodes were picked out of a pool of 72 applicants. Rhodes's piece for the All Lanes Lead to Indy Art Project was a painting titled "Emerge," which was created by the artist to bring attention to those in the black community who might not have the money for swim classes. The five pieces were displayed on Georgia Street and in the Toyota Aqua Zone during the 2024 U.S. Olympic Swim Trials, taking place in Lucus Oil Stadium from June 15th through the 23rd.

During October and November of 2024, Rhodes had his artwork displayed as one of several artists featured in the exhibition, "Self-serenades." The event was billed as a collaboration between the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and GANGGANG, and it included two exhibitions ("Self-Serenades" and "Hector Del Campo: Perennial Topographies") located in the Oval Promenade and Wood Room at the historic Hilbert Circle Theatre. For the "Self-serenades" exhibition, Rhodes, along with a group of fellow black artists, was invited to share through his artwork his connection to community, loved ones, and himself. The exhibition ended on November 16th, 2024.

Influences

Before the Black Lives Matter street mural was painted in the summer of 2020, Rhodes was contemplating taking his artistic endeavors out of his hometown of Indianapolis. After seeing the effects of GANGGANG and the Butter Fine Arts Fair, Rhodes was inspired to stick around and try to be a part of the change he believed to be happening in the Indianapolis art scene. Rhodes's art has been included in all of the annual Butter Fine Arts Fairs as of 2024, including the Butter Fine Arts Fair at Indy's Home Court that took place from February 16th through the 18th in 2024. In a reflection on BUTTER's impact on the careers and visibility of Black artists, Rhodes note that the fair gives Black artists "a chance to tell our stories."

“Follow the spotlights, stop and smell the flowers” is a phrase that has had an impact on the symbolism utilized by Rhodes in his artwork. Rhodes has stated that he uses spotlights in his paintings for their ability to call attention to a particular subject matter (good or bad) related to the work. An example of his use of this device can be found in his piece "Red Handed" where he included a spotlight in order to highlight the critical American gaze cast on Black Americans. Flora elements have also been a signature of the artist's work, acting as a symbolic representation of the possibility of growth and good things to come.

Work

• "Colored King" and "Woman of Paradise," We. The Culture at Newfields (2022-2023)
• PHS Philadelphia Flower Show Mural (2023)
• Work in Progress: Conversations about American Art (2023)
• "Monkey See, Monkey Do," BUTTER Art Fair, 2023.
• "Reasons" at the Indiana Memorial Union art collection, Indiana University, Bloomington.

References

Category:Indiana