Brittney Washington

Public Studio Hours: Mondays 1pm-5pm , Tuesdays and Wednesdays  1pm-4pm

Artist Statement:

As a black woman, queer artist, and working-class mother from the U.S. Southeast, I’ve spent time searching for alternative ways to think, live, and carve out the kind of life I want. This orientation–as well as Black feminist ancestors, elders, and contemporaries–helps me understand that the reality I/we seek is one I/we must create. World-building requires an interdisciplinary practice; I blend elements of art therapy, cultural organizing, and visual artistry to instigate change. Curating anti-oppression workshops is as much a part of my artistic practice as painting. During facilitation, I lean on womanist, queer understandings of systems, change, and healing to advance liberatory thought and action. As a painter, I place the Black femme form and mundanity of southern life at the center of the viewer’s experience, subverting the single-story narrative of what The South is and who lives here. Instead, my work speaks: We are here, we are multitudes, we are essential to humanity’s liberation. I seek to engage in a perpetual tantra, moving toward and weaving together that which speaks to me mentally, spiritually, physically, and energetically. My social arts practice is a portal to personal and collective healing from that which divorces us from our true selves and the liberated world that could [will] be.

Artist Biography: 

Brittney's multidisciplinary approaches to her work apply an understanding that 1) our most important responsibility is dismantling the power arrangements that maintain oppression; 2) everyone has different points of entry into politicization and social justice movements; and 3) art is a powerful portal to healing, imagination, and movement for that purpose.

She uses painting, illustration, and filmmaking to uplift the experiences and perspectives of African-Americans living in the US South. Her work decolonizes ideas of normality and invites radical empathy across difference. As a racial justice strategist and cultural organizer, Brittney has facilitated internationally to illuminate the historical events that shape our current experiences of racialized poverty, trauma, and disconnection. She curates arts-based spaces where folks can be brave, vulnerable, and imaginative about how to shape a liberatory future. She also serves as a visual arts producer for social justice groups.