Felandus Thames - Harlem Prose 1

Felandus Thames

Felandus Thames Born in 1974 A native of Mississippi, Felandus Thames is a graduate of the Yale University’s MFA program in Painting/Printmaking and has earned a BA from Jackson State University. In addition to three solo shows, Thames has been included in numerous group exhibitions on the national level including Yale University in New Haven, CT, Mississippi Museum of Art, National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, TN, Aspen Museum of Art, Prospect 1 New Orleans, Miami Basel 2010, and a solo show at Tilton Gallery in New York. He has been recognized as an actively contributing member of the artistic community in Mississippi and received numerous commissions including the City of Jackson, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson Medical Mall Foundation, and Medgar Evers Institute. Thames was awarded Travel Grants, Mini Grants, and Individual Artist Fellowships from the Mississippi Arts Commission and The Greater Jackson Arts Council. Thames has been featured in prestigious publications included New York Times, Art in America, NYU's e-misferica, and Gathering of the Tribes. Felandus Thames currently shares a studio with Rene Cox in Harlem. Artist Statement An interdisciplinary practice has proven to be the most effective tool in making work that challenges everyday notions of identity and which calls in to question the nature of knowledge and perception.  I am interested undermining the quotidian ideas about Blackness through a reexamination of historical tropes of identity in order to form new paradigms of thought. My purpose is to investigate how these tropes continue to permeate popular culture perpetuating a ubiquitous myth of the post-colonial identity.  The intersection of pop culture, the male gaze and the ideas around the post-colonial body are an integral part of the work. They aid in the process of exploring the boundaries of seduction and repulsion that have become recurring themes of the project in my body of work.