Sun Ra's Gift to Tomorrow

Sun Ra's Gift to Tomorrow

Stacey A. Robinson
American, b. 1972

archival inkjet print of a digital drawing
52 x 34 inches

print

These portraits are part of a much larger collection. They are practitioners I connect to my Afrofuturism philosophy of future-based liberation and freedom. These black and white images are works in progress highlighting a few illustrated selections from an ongoing series examining my vinyl record collection and hard to find aspired additions to that collection. These works inspired through my “crate digging” as research for over 30 years connecting golden age Hip-Hop samples to their original source material additionally illustrate other pop cultural references like animation and comic books. Inspired by artists like Abdul Mati Klarwein, Overton Loyd, and Pedro Bell, to name a few, these works are intended to prompt audiences to think about the Black cultural wealth of Hip-Hop as a collage culture of various influences that tether the past to the speculative future through the Ghanaian concept of Sankofa meaning to “go back and get it.” We go back and retrieve Black pasts, bring them into the future with us as a means of defining our Black liberated futures.

Ewing Gallery Purchase