One novel on V.F.'s list is like 13 Going on 30 in reverse.
“I make work for people to see, but the process is for me,” says Gio Swaby, the Bahamian portrait artist who positions Black joy as an act of resistance. Last spring, not long after starting as an MFA student at the Ontario College of Art and Design University, she sold out her solo debut at Claire Oliver Gallery in Harlem: Her large-scale textiles unencumber Black femmes from the politicization of the Black female form. “The big moments have a lot of duality,” Swaby says.
out from Rizzoli Electa in conjunction with her first solo museum show at the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Florida, coauthors including Nikole Hannah-Jones frame Swaby’s practice in the contexts of racial politics, Black portraiture, and textile traditions. Still, at its core, art remains “a visual practice for me,” Swaby tells“I love to play with color. I love to play with pattern…. The heart is a really important aspect of my decision-making process too.