Interview With Artist Django Lewis

by Skye J

Skye Jalal: So I guess to start, do you maybe want to tell me a little bit about who you are, where you’re from, just like basic introductory stuff?

Django Lewis: I’m from Brooklyn, New York. I’m 18 and I’m currently a sophomore at RISD studying painting. Soon I’ll be getting into photography, which will be fun, but for the time being I would consider myself like a painter/mixed media artist/print maker. Anything colorful, that’s my vibe.

SJ: How did your practice begin? Have you always painted?

DL: I can’t remember a time in my life where I haven’t been making art in some way. When I was two and a half or three, my mom realized that I really liked to draw and that I really loved crayons and watercolor– what we all do when we’re little. She just surrounded me with more art materials. It’s definitely all thanks to her. I’ve been doing art for as long as I can remember.

SJ: So you started making art as a young child, and then it’s just been continuous since then?

DL: Yeah, yeah. I don’t think I’ve ever played a sport. I’ve always just been doing art, art stuff. Always.

SJ: Are there any major art related memories that you have from growing up?

DL: I have one memory, but it’s something that my mom told me. I had an art teacher in elementary school that pulled my mom aside and told her that the way that I was holding a paintbrush, that my teacher thought I was going to be an artist. So my mom, like, took initiatives with that, and just started putting me in more art classes and having me do a lot of stuff. So she listened to her.

But for my own memories, I remember being like five and I had my little easel set up in the living room by the TV. I’d draw or I’d paint. I’d be watching cartoons at the same time, and I’d wear Princess gloves, and I’d wear a little tutu. I painted Clorox wipes and Barbie dresses. I remember doing that. I was always painting.

SJ: So I read a little bit that a lot of your work centers on Trinidad, and I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about your relationship to Trinidad and like, why, how it influences your work.

DL: Most of the art that I’m doing now is really connected to my dad, who passed away, but before he passed away, he wasn’t really present in my life. So a lot of my work is about memory and coming to terms with grief, and also the passing of time.

My mom is white and my dad was black. He was from Trinidad, so because of his absence I had a very strong disconnect to my blackness. I don’t have lighter skin. I have darker skin. I look more like he did. So I just always had this disconnect. But to most people, I’m not even seen as mixed at all. So I kind of had to learn how to like, learn what my blackness meant to me, by myself. So, Trinidad is important, because I’ve tried to, like, build a connection to Trinidad on my own.

After my dad passed, I think I was 13, my way of responding to things is just to push things down and not really acknowledge them. So I wasn’t allowing myself to think about it. But obviously that was just not good for me. So I kind of eventually forced myself, like, two years later, at age 14 or maybe 15. I started to go through old photos of him, and I couldn’t even, like, look through old photos without, like, feeling really weird and feeling like, “Wow, this is a very strong part of me, But I don’t have any connection to this.” So I kind of pushed through these feelings, and I started painting him. And then slowly, as I started painting him, I started to feel more comfortable with him, and I started to, like, understand myself, and feel happy about, like, my background, and I wanted to build a connection to Trinidad. So that’s like, basically where that comes from.

SJ: That makes me think of a few things. One of the things that I noted about your work is that there’s an interesting way that you render things, or, a lack of rendering really. In a lot of your paintings, the facial features of a figure will be in full detail, and then their bodies will just dissipate. You’ll leave just raw material, or really light washes, especially in the clothing.There’s often a sort of vague or unclear sense of place. So it’s interesting to hear you talk about memory, because that’s exactly what I was thinking about, when looking at the work.

It also makes me think of, there’s an artist in Atlanta. I can’t remember his name [Alex Christopher Williams], but he’s a photographer and he had this series Black like Paul. He also was raised by a white mother and had an absent black father. A lot of his work was about imagining, or, I guess, trying to come in contact with his blackness. The difference there is that he’s white passing, so the show had very divided reviews. Also because, I think he was only technically an eighth black.

DL: I often think about how people perceive my work. Especially once they realize that my mom was white. Because at the surface level, without actually knowing what I’m making, it kind of just feels like—don’t know how to put it into words, but I know you understand. It feels like I’m ignoring one side and kind of playing something else. I don’t know how to articulate it, but it is a worry that I’ve had. But people really understand what I’m making and know that that’s not what I’m doing. To add to the dream or the memory idea and how I paint figures, the way that I first went about painting old family photos, was trying to portray them in a dream-like manner. The way I’ve described it in the past is like looking back at memories that I don’t remember having. So instead, I just tried to paint them with very whimsical colors and purples and pinks and whatnot, just to take these memories and reclaim them as my own. Because most of the photos that I paint are from when I was like three, because I haven’t been to Trinidad since I was three. Some are from before I was even alive. So I’m trying to reclaim.

SJ: One question that I had was about the figures in your paintings. Some of them definitely seem very personal to you. For example, Granny’s Kitchen– it’s very outwardly, a familial setting and image. However other paintings are a bit more anonymous, or unclear. And I was wondering if all your paintings are of familial subjects, or if there’s any variation in

your source material.

DL: At the time that I painted Granny’s kitchen, I was doing a series of paintings of my father. It was all sourced from family pictures. But there’s a lot of work that I’ve done where I would rip pages out of a sketchbook and paint them, and then tape them together, and then use oil pastel on top of them. Those were more of my own exploration of myself and by extension, my blackness, and just blackness in general. I was drawing inspiration from music, like a lot. I think all of my work is inspired by reggae in some way. When I think of my childhood, I can’t remember a lot of things, but I remember the songs that I grew up with. I remember the feeling that reggae brought me. So all of my work, especially recently, has really emphasized the importance of music in my life.

I’m also really inspired by Malick Sidibé and Sanlé Sory, and just African photography in general. I feel like it was so revolutionary at the time, to have Black people not being portrayed by white people.And it has just such a warm feeling. I find myself really inspired by photographers as opposed to painters, at the moment, at least.

SJ: I noticed that you have the painting of Malick Sidibé and Sanlé Sory. There’s one painting of them, and then you have another one that is a rendering of a photograph by one of them. I don’t remember which one.

DL: Oh, yeah, I’ve done a lot. A lot of my figurative stuff is inspired by those photos, because I really love the composition and the pattern. Recently I’ve been kind of stepping into more imaginative work. When I was unable to look at pictures of him, I also couldn’t listen to any reggae music without just feeling so uncomfortable. I wouldn’t even say the feeling was sad, just kind of a mental block. I couldn’t do it. So as I started to paint him, I slowly started to really love reggae. Now, the majority of what I listen to every day is reggae. So yeah, it definitely contributed to, like, this feeling of self, because it’s really what I can remember from my childhood, and also, like, I dreaded my hair, like, two years ago. I think that was also pretty crucial to this whole journey, because I would call all of my art more of a personal journey than anything else. So like, things like that. Like, yeah, my connection to reggae and my hair just kind of makes me feel more connected to him and in turn, my identity.

SJ: I am also curious about your use of color. It seems to be one of the most striking aspects of your work, at least to me. You have a really distinct color palette from image to image. There’s a lot of jewel tones- reds and reddish purples and yellows.

You mentioned briefly the importance of color to you as a painter. I’m curious if that palette is intentional, or if those are colors that you’re most drawn to? Just your general thoughts on color.

DL: I don’t even know how to describe my creative process. With the painting that I’m working on right now, I just started in my mind. I was like, “Okay, three men, blue background, Adidas tracksuit.” I start with not a very strong idea of color. I’ll just be working and I’ll be like, “okay, pink looks good here.” Then I go with it. And then I might be like, “scratch that red.” I’m just really drawn to vibrant colors.

Recently I’ve been balancing vibrant colors with muted colors. That’s not something that I used to do very strongly. Everything was pretty warm toned. A lot of reds and I use a lot of purple. I don’t think I use purple as much as I used to,but that’s kind of just been a progression of my work.

I just like using a lot of color. I’ll always treat myself to a new oil paint, like I’m slowly going broke. But red– I really like red. My favorite color is cadmium red light, or cadmium orange. I feel like even as my color palette changes, those two will stay.

SJ: The color palette has a very nostalgic sense for me. Atlanta has all these like Black vegan restaurants. And there’s this one cafe that sells these $20 vegan burritos. I’ve spent a lot of time waiting in line at this place, and the whole interior is like this, like neon green. And then they have these paintings like line the walls where you stand and wait. Your color palette reminded me of that, the artwork that I grew up around in South Atlanta. The kind of community artwork that comes from Black people who are just making things and working with colors that are exciting to them.

DL: Another thing that I’ve really been inspired by recently– I don’t know if it connects, but this just kind of pops in my head. I really like looking at old Rock Steady album covers. Not just Rock Steady, but old Reggae record covers in general. I really like the simple use of color and line. Over everything, music is my biggest inspiration. Yeah, music is my biggest inspiration.