This month, Barney Savage Gallery hosts Entre Vues, the global premiere of new work by Debora Cheyenne, an artist Juxtapoz has had their eye on for a bit now. Cheyenne balances both moving images with a practice in 2D and 3D art, a unique blend of digital and handmade that has made her one of the more refreshing talents we have seen in recent years.
Through an interdisciplinary practice revealing themes of post-web racial and Pan-African identity, the artist has created digital figure paintings and sculptures in soft almost edible color. Cheyenne’s imagery evokes a cerebral approach to Afrofuturism, a cultural aesthetic term that has expanded since the 90s, through themes of science fiction, tech, and the African diaspora experience.
This influential movement can be found in the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kerry James Marshall, Nick Cave, Julianna Huxtable, and has been a topic of recent exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem and PS1 MoMA. Cheyenne’s interests in post-human concepts are akin to the techno-culture term "Afrofuturism 2.0".
Barney Savage Gallery presents the artist’s sculptures as a table array of whimsical forms physically reminiscent of the disassembled body, with the largest being three heads that is a combination of hyper-stylized African masks and techno post-human idealization. The inaugural exhibition of the season features an impressive contemporary talent in digital art-making that expands the growing genre in figuration, identity culture and technology.
Debora Cheyenne (born 1991, Paris) graduated from Gobelins and has exhibited in Paris, London and Los Angeles. Her recent new-media artwork is influenced by the spiritual and cultural heritage of Reunion Island. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
Deboa Cheyenne’s solo exhibition Entre Vues is on view through October 5th, 2019 at Barney Savage Gallery in NYC.
