Black American Digital Creators To Get To Know This Black History Month
In recognition of this year’s Black History Month theme, African Americans and the Arts, we will explore the intersection of Black arts and tech throughout February.
The origins of digital art can be traced back to ideologies present in the first half of the 20th century.
While artists were keenly interested in innovations, the rich potential of modern technologies as tools in art only began to be explored as access increased in the 1950s and beyond.
Digital art is a term used to describe art that is made or presented using digital technology. This can include computer, generative, robotic, kinetic, and net art, through to post-internet, virtual reality, and augmented reality art.
Many Black digital artists have used their platforms to bring Black history to life, from celebrating resistance movements to remembering the legacy of historical icons and the relevance of their struggles today.
To celebrate Black History Month, we have compiled a list of some Black American digital creators you should know.
Alton Glass
Alton Glass, also known as the “godfather of Black VR,” is a creative entrepreneur, director, and CEO of extended-reality (XR) studio GXR Immersive Labs.
In 2020, Glass, with Mia Tramz and TIME co-created The March, a virtual-reality exhibit honoring Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and the 1963 March on Washington.
The project was co-produced by Time magazine and Viola Davis’ JuVee Productions and premiered at the DuSable Museum of African American History.
Tatyanna Taylor
Taylor is a 22-year-old minimalist semi-realist visual artist and designer.
Taylor graduated from St. Xavier University in Chicago, Illinois, with a bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design and African American Studies.
She then interned with The Beverly Arts Center, a multidisciplinary cultural center in Chicago.
Taylor told Forbes that art always felt like a familiar, safe space for her.
Drawing and creating her designs using Adobe Creative Cloud and Procreate software, she has used art to tell the stories of racially marginalized populations that have been silenced.
Taylor draws from the current socio-cultural climate in the US issues related to racism and traditions synonymous with the Black culture to celebrate Blackness.
Isaac Udogwu
Nigerian-American digital artist Isaac Udogwu operations in Web3 under the name eyesakudawgoo.
He focuses his work on different modes of Black liberation through the lens of Afrofuturism.
Believing that Afrofuturism is “simply Black people existing in the future,” he seeks to create unique digital worlds that envision people of the African diaspora as fully liberated.
Kwame-Michael Brako
Brako, also known as DarkyMythst, is a Ghanaian-born, US-based, multi-faceted artist whose work resolves around sci-fi, cosmic, futurism, and cyberpunk art.
He portrays his art through fantasy, mythology, and futurism.
His career started as a graphic designer but later expanded into roles as a visual effects artist, where he landed a job creating effects and applying stereo-graphic techniques for films such as The Avengers, GI Joe, and Guardians of the Galaxy.
Later, he became the creative director for a medical education company, where he led and trained team members who created illustrations, animations, and videos for medical content.
