Proudly self-taught, Marcus Brutus is a contemporary painter based in Queens, New York, whose portrayals of African Americans examine the contemporary struggle for civil rights. Brutus meshes contemporary imagery with ambiguous traces of the past, collapsing time and revealing the lingering trauma of history. His figures, solitary or grouped, active or passive, exude calm confidence and stalwart self-assurance. Embarking from this point, Brutus explores self-expression and self-representation in spite of societal conditions; his figures define their own standards of beauty and identity while confronting—and surpassing—structural racism and the “internalization of racist attitudes by racial minorities.”1 Brutus’ paintings engage ideas of power through portraiture, establishing decisively positive frameworks for self-determination.
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