CURATED BY TERI HENDERSON
“Brittany M. Reid was born and raised in Rochester, NY where she studied Psychology and Fine Arts at St. John Fisher College and SUNY Brockport. Her earlier work in photography and painting focuses on finding comfort in nature and in close relationships with others. She was deeply influenced by frequent trips to art galleries with her mother as a child and by her interest in astronomy at a young age.
She currently resides in Rochester where she works primarily in analog collage. Although relatively new to collage, she has been more prolific in this medium than any other. She also leads the #BlackCollagesMatter movement within Instagram, an ongoing call to collage artists that asks them to create and submit pieces that center Black subjects to increase Black visibility in the collage community. Along with this project, she has collaborated with {th ink} publication and released a special edition #BlackCollagesMatter issue to showcase artists who have participated in the project, donating the proceeds to the Black Trans Femmes in the Arts Collective.”
Statement: Reality can be traumatic and my collages are created with another reality in mind – one that combines the most delightful memories of the past with the dreams that the future may hold. My obsession with outer space and attraction to nature collide with a nostalgic aesthetic achieved from my choice to use source material from the 80’s and 90’s. The entire process of collaging is therapeutic for me. Getting that perfect cut is an act of catharsis.
I let my childhood memories, experiences as a queer, Black woman, and life as a mother dictate much of my work. My pieces highlight not only the surreal beauty that exists within all of nature, but also how that beauty is reflected in the experience of each individual. The themes I present ask the viewer to consider humans’ complicated relationship with nature, the macrocosm vs. the microcosm, and the power of the female experience
Find more about Brittany M. Reid’s work on her website and Instagram.
