Dominique White | Artist Overview

Dominique White (GB) weaves together the theories of Black Subjectivity, Afro-pessimism and Hydrarchy (from below) with the nautical myths of Black Diaspora into a term she defines as the Shipwreck(ed); a reflexive verb and state of being. White’s sculptures, or beacons, prophesy the emergence of the Stateless; “a [Black] future that hasn’t yet happened, but must.” (Campt 2017 in Yussof 2018) White's research is inspired by the sounds of Detroit Techno and Electronic, where she continues to reference Afrofuturist narratives (situated in space and underwater) depicted by DJ Stingray (Sherard Ingram), Drexciya (Gerald Donald and James Stinson) and Tygapaw (Dion McKenzie). Her research also extends beyond the tangible, with a curiosity for both the destruction and mythicism that hurricanes in the Caribbean leave in their eternally transformative wake in the sea. Her visual vocabulary combines an emulation of a destroyed vessel at sea using destroyed sails, tired hand-woven nets, mutilated anchors and deflated nautical buoys which are all cast and coated in a ghostly shroud of kaolin clay. She utilises this forceful unification as a means of dissociating the motifs from their original function and redefining them as bodies charged with retaliation, protest and resilience. These works, or bodies, delicately balance the states of preservation, decay and destruction whilst emanating a warning or a threat of what is to come. Dominique mostly lives in Marseille (FR) and Essex (UK). She currently works nomadically.