The following list was a response to my friend, Eddie Arroyo, regarding the article on Huffingtonpost.com, 10 Of The Most Influential Black Artists Today. My list refers to my influences as I saw them at the time I made up the list (without too much thinking about it). There might be some surprises and revelations, but this is it.
Ten Artists of Influence on my art practice:
earlier influences
1) Ray Bravo – high school days friend whose drawings inspired me to draw exactly what I wanted; a lasting influence.
2) Robert Rauschenberg – his use of collage and photography made me rethink my practice.
3) Bruce Nauman – his early work provided ways to think about remaining engaged in an art practice that was outside the white cubic space.
4) Ian Hamilton Finley – for his writing and work in the environment.
more recently
5) Richard Tuttle – the variety of humble materials and how they are used to explore various notions in his practice.
6) Vernon Fisher – seeing one of his wall painting installations changed how I thought about displaying my art.
7) Miwon Kwon, art historian and critic – acknowledging the importance of my writing to my practice; identifying the performativity in my practice.
8) william cordova – his influence has been for me to give myself permission to do things that I really should have done years earlier by controlling of my practice instead of being influenced by others (with access to exhibition venues and other “market incentives”): a) naming artworks any damn way I want, as intended; b) reembracing the notion of obscurity and the hermetic as I see fit to do; c) displaying my art any damn way and any damn where I want, and the validity of that.
9) Edouard Duval Carrié – for our many, many conversations over the years about my practice, about the local, about the Caribbean and southern US.
10) What has influenced my art practice is not restricted to visual artists, but also been many writers, of both fiction and nonfiction, and a few musicians (Zora Neale Hurston, Wole Soyinka, Cecil Taylor are just a few names I’ve mentioned several times).