Artist Statement: Contemporary American artist Shabazz Larkin situates his practice within portraiture’s long tradition and the enduring language of the monument. For Larkin, every work operates as a monument, whether intimate portrait or sculptural form, built to hold presence against time. Working across painting, sculpture, and text, he engages the visual language of the holy and the ornament to render figures shaped by diasporic traditions and American history. Language often enters his practice as inscription, refrain, and invocation, sharpening the image into communal testimony. Anchored by themes of fatherhood, community and guided by contemplative practice, Larkin’s paintings and sculptures function as both empathetic witness and cultural protection, where tenderness and power coexist and presence becomes the central act.
