PAPAY SOLOMON
BIOGRAPHY
The heart of Papay Solomon’s work extends beyond the artist’s life, to before he was born. When Solomon’s mother fled the First Liberian Civil War, she was still pregnant with the artist. She crossed the border from Guinea to neighboring country, Liberia, on foot. At age 5, Solomon and his family were forced to once again relocate due to political unrest-- this time from the Guinean city of Gueckedou to the refugee camps built several hundred miles away, where he would spend most of his childhood. At 14 years old, Solomon and his family relocated, as refugees, to the United States. Since then, Solomon has created portraits of who he names as his “collaborators”—fellow refugees and members of the African diaspora. In technique and subject, he examines the divide between heritage and adopted culture.
Many subjects are dressed in both American and traditional African attire, a visual identifier of their multifaceted cultural identity. In each work, Solomon combines hyper-realist techniques with a European tradition of “non finito,” directly translated as “not finished.” The artist is quoted speaking to this combination in asking, “how do I find a middle, and what is complete? Am I incomplete because I don’t fit in anywhere, or am I more complete than someone who is just from one place?”
Papay Solomon (b. 1993 Guekedou, Ginea) lives and works in Phoenix, AZ. He has recently exhibited work with Tucson Museum of Art (Tucson, AZ) and Moniker International Art Fair (Brooklyn, NY). In 2018 he received the Contemporary Forum Emerging Artist Grant from the Phoenix Art Museum (Phoenix, AZ) and the Erni Cabat Award from the Tucson Museum of Art (Tucson, AZ). Step Gallery (Phoenix, AZ) presented his first solo exhibition in early 2020.
EXHIBITIONS
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