Darryl DeAngelo Terrell

In the Series titled “BLKBOYCOLORED” I am exploring the way I relate color to personal stories, through photography, text, and sound. Within this installation, there are 13 self-portraits each self-portrait is tented in a specific color as it relates to the story I am telling. Be it the color I was wearing on a specific day and or the color society associates with certain shared lived experiences (i.e Purple with domestic abuse), or the color that best represents the feelings and emotions during lived experiences facing queer black boys.

The self-portraits present myself visually nude, hair pulled back and in a vulnerable state, while my skin is visually shiny. The prints are printed true to size (16x22) and are hung at my eyesight based on my height( 6 feet 6 inches). I am thinking about what it means to put myself in a visibly vulnerable position, where viewers of the work have to look up to me.

The series is inspired by the 2016 film Moonlight. I was inspired by the way Moonlight used colors during an array of scenes to convey a feeling. The level of ambiguity in the writing of the film, for example, when Quan dies in the film, they chose not to expose that level of

trauma and pain to the viewers. Moonlight ignited this interest for me to tell stories without giving everything to the viewer.

BLKBOYCOLORED was also inspired by a public lecture that I attended at the Art Institute of Chicago, it was a conversation between Thelma Golding, Glenn Ligon, Cauleen Smith, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. During the public lecture, Smith spoke about Hype Williams, and how in the 1998 movie “Belly” Hype William’s would have darker skin models coat their bodies in the coconut oil, so that when in a dimly light room the light would capture the shadows and textures of their darker skin tones. I used the way Hype William treated light on darker skin models and the way Berry Jenkin used light to enhance his storytelling as a way for me to build this autobiographical installation that tells stories of death, pain, fear, happiness, triumph, and achievement in my work. 

Book Accompanied with Serise can be bought here