Clintel Steed believes every painting has the potential to be a portal into another time and dimension. It’s a bold assertion, but one that somehow rings true, as he invites us to step through the looking glass in his new series of paintings. Different Time Zones, Different Dimensions explores a future consumed and experienced through augmented reality, juxtaposed against a more naturalistic past, when humanity was devoted to wild beasts and powerful deities.
Displaying an almost visionary prowess for divining his imagery, Steed’s works feel incredibly prescient as they relay imagined paths backwards and forward in time. His instinctual ability to dissect picture planes and reconfigure scenes has never felt more urgent, as he processes complex visions of time travel, floating orbs, AI embodiment, cannibalistic astronauts, shamanistic rituals, UFOs, and even the CERN super collider.
There is an experiential component to these dystopian images, which are all rendered in thick oil paint and constructed with angular blocks of colors that pulse against one another. Stepping into Clintel Steed’s future, we witness Black men voluntarily strapped into virtual reality headsets and existing inside giant mainframe computers with no interest in the outside world. In stark comparison, Steed also presents masked tribal ceremonies from the past, where individuals have gathered together to make offerings and perform rites in honor of gods, wild animals, and the spaceships hovering in the sky above.
Allowing viewers to become time travelers through painting is an impressive feat, and Steed aims to take us back to simpler times before it is too late. The artist is quick to point out that his paintings are not about Black futurism. The works are instead about spirituality and time, and how a better understanding of our past and not-so-distant future may help us to make sense of the complexities of today.
