Xavier Daniels

Xavier Daniels pushes societal complacency through his paintings that challenge contemporary narratives of the Black male experience. With a traditional realistic technique, Daniels pulls from his own life experiences and relationships to create poetic imagery of Black men. Heightened through intense textural elements, expressive brushstrokes, and manipulations of space, his method of abstracting his subjects subverts the perpetuated stereotypes that often consume the Black male identity. As the flesh tones swirl with pastel tones, plays of neutral grays and whites, and the occasional vibrant tones of majestic purples, Daniels tells the story of perseverance and brotherhood.

The authentic experience of the Black community tends to be lost under the weight of stereotypes of athletes, absentee fathers, and criminals. Black men find themselves in a state of invisibility not only to society itself but in the conversations surrounding their own lives, their culture, and their legacies. Daniel’s portrayal of these men returns them to these conversations about their own identity. Through plays of color and seemingly unusual poses, he undermines these media-portrayed and generationally instilled notions with paintings infused with a sense of genuine emotion and vulnerability. The work speaks to more than social status but to the danger these falsehoods pose to mental health, where Black men suffer a sense of uncertainty that carries with them. Just as the portraits Daniels creates are complemented by fields of negative space and colors that evoke deep psychological responses, his viewers experience the sense of absence that is physically, culturally, and emotionally imbued within the Black journey.