Izaiah Rhodes
they/them
Instagram: @outletenthusiast
Just Another Nigger (2023)
Wenge, Walnut, Maple, Silver
This piece is a self portrait which illustrates Izaiah’s life from birth to present. Each species of wood is specific to a region that plays an integral role in Izaiah’s identity. Each Item is a personal artifact. Each of these aspects is intentional, yet without description they disappear.
Artist Statement
Izaiah was born in Boston, Massachusetts to a black man and a white woman. With the separation of their parents, they grew up in Vermont experiencing a complete severance from their blackness. One of the many results of this was a ceaseless and at times frustrating need to articulate their existence to a group of people who were fundamentally unable to understand.
Their goal is no longer to make someone understand, again, this is impossible, but rather to carve out a space for truth to exist. Those who are truly driven to reconcile this past will invariably be drawn in. Izaiah’s works articulate a trauma not within the individual, but one that lives collectively.
Simply put, their larger purpose beyond art is to haunt what has haunted them. Racism desires to create a monolithic view of the black experience, when there is no singular black experience. It is their responsibility to illustrate these pluralities, and how they all intersect, to better articulate a collective consciousness. Doing so may begin to clarify how an African descended people can exist as a nation, without a state. True progress and reconciliation can only begin once mutual understanding and respect are achieved.
Artist Bio
Izaiah Rhodes is an artist and organizer living in Boston Massachusetts. They were born in Boston and grew up in Bennington, Vermont. They have exhibited work in Vermont, Massachusetts and North Carolina. They earned a BFA in Interdisciplinary art from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts in 2023.