As an artist who is both African and American, Papay Solomon’s practice seeks to extend what it means to be African in America and how one's “authentic” Africaness” can be expressed and maintained across generational and continental divides. 

For Papay, being raised in United Nations refugee camps during the First Liberian Civil War delegitimized the possibility for permanence and stability until his family relocated to the United States at age 14. Therefore, the construct of home is neither fixed nor necessarily a structure, rather an ethos that orbits the depictions of his biological and chosen families.

Every Papay Solomon painting contains key areas of the picture plane that remain “unpainted” or non finito revealing the work’s compositional bones and alluding to the moments in our lives that are open-ended and in flux. Solomon’s exposed mark-making, an integral part of his signature visual vocabulary, reminds us that both personal growth and collective understanding are complete “incomplete projects.”

 Taken as a whole, Solomon’s work asks viewers to (re)consider our subjectivities when we gaze upon each other. In this way, Solomon’s practice is a humanist project — one that celebrates both the authenticity of various subject positions and the cohesion of a collective imaginary.

Papay Solomon (b. 1993, Guekedou, Guinea) lives in Phoenix, AZ

Visit Papay Solomon’s website at https://papaysolomon.com/

Click here to view a video documentary on Papay Solomon.

Courtesy The Something Machine, Bellport