Stacey Robinson

Stacey Robinson is an artist from Albany, NY, who creates graphic novels, art exhibitions, and other multimedia works of art that explores the ideas of “Black Utopias” through an Afro-Futurist lens. Robinson graduated from Fayetteville State University with a Bachelor of Arts, and went on to complete his Master of Fine Arts as a Arthur Schomburg Fellow at the University of Buffalo. 

He is a part of the collaborative artist duo “Black Kirby” alongside John Jennings, which explores Afro Speculative existence through the aesthetic of Jack Kirby. Robinson has been a part of many exhibitions including “Invisible Ink: Black Independent Comix” at the University of Tennessee and “Beyond the Frame: African American Comic Book Artists” at the Flint Institute of Arts. 

Robinson’s artwork explores the ideas of futures where Black people are free from the harmful impacts of colonialism. His work can be seen around the world at Modern Graphics in Berlin, Bucknell University, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Some of his graphic novels include: ‘Kid Code: Channel Zero’, ‘Prison Industrial Complex For Beginners’, and ‘I am Alfonso Jones’.  

Robinson’s artist statement says: 

“I create multimedia works as a form of Black resistance to colonial America. In detail my drawing, painting, comics, writings and performances examine Black culture and the Black body as a technology from past to speculative future in a narrative that addresses ideas and the intricacies of love, sex, religion and decolonization. I illustrate the conflicts of integration, miseducation, unresolved slavery, unresolved emancipation, and Black people’s lack of ability to self-organize and self-govern. In this I appropriate images of Black trauma to incite conversation to action and dismantle ideas of derogatory Black relations, pacificity, and docility.

When creating my counter assessment of Black stereotypes and misrepresentations of Black existence, I teeter at the edge of celebration and exploitation of Black culture with a use of postmodern appropriations. I utilize cultural symbols, machinery, and non-human life forms as survivalist metaphors for the Black experience. As a result, I revere Black culture while confronting the traumatic results of colonialism. 

My exhibitions transform the gallery into temporary “utopias” (ideal space of peace). Through the typically racially, educationally, socially exclusive gallery system I seek to create spaces where open communication about Black liberation can take place between the usual patrons and the typically uninvited non white community, at least temporarily.

 Some of my recent work as the collaborative team “Black Kirby” in conjunction with artist John Jennings deconstructs the work of artist Jack Kirby to reimagine Black resistance spaces inspired by Hip Hop, religion, the arts, and sciences. Additionally we collaborate with like-minded others to establish graphic narratives, cultural festivals, gallery exhibitions, and lectures.” [1]

Robinson is currently an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design in the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 

Learn more about Stacey Robinson's work here: https://www.smilepolitely.com/arts/artist_stacey_robinson_educates_and_inspires_with_afrofuturis/

[1] "Obsidian – Literature and Arts in the African Diaspora, Stacey Robinson"  https://obsidianlit.org/project/stacey-robinson/