Dwight White
Dwight White II is a Chicago based artist.
Curator’s note: The journey from promising young athlete to inspirational artist is a pretty unique one but that’s the story of Dwight White. After an unexpected injury whilst at college, Dwight was forced to hang up his football boots for good (that’s American football for the Brits). The path ahead was no longer as clear as it once was and he was forced to reevaluate. So he turned to the paint brush, deciding to pursue a career in art. With that goal in mind, Dwight got his head down and ran with it. They say everything happens for a reason and I do hope Dwight hasn’t looked back since because he’s now a truly talented artist creating work that demands your attention. So now that I have yours, read on to hear from the man himself…
Where it all began…
I was born and raised in Texas and I always say that I grew into manhood in Chicago. Two very different experiences in two very different places. In Texas I was bread to be a football player; I would go to school, play football, basketball and other sports with the hope that it would allow me to get a full ride scholarship to college.
In fact, my artist journey started in tragedy, that is one unique thing about my experience. I had the opportunity to be reborn into a different career path. I was passionate about athletics, football to be specific and when that came to an end, I started exploring things that brought me happiness as a child. One of those things was art.
When you are an athlete and especially at the collegiate level, playing at the university, it is really important that you put most of your time outside of the classroom into that craft. Being great at what you do requires commitment and a lot of commitment to play college ball. It wasn’t until that came to an end that I was able to dive into my creativity and art full time or even part time.
As I continued to dive deeper into the creative world, I realised that not only did I have the talent to pursue it more professionally, but it also made me feel good, made me feel at home. I always feel like I’m at home and doing what I’m supposed to be doing when I’m creating.
After those beginnings in Texas, I came to Chicago. Chicago is where I feel like I was reborn an artist, I didn’t identify as an artist until I came to Chicago. I started exploring the city and got inspired by the big lights. Chicago has impacted my artwork, from the diverse range of people, the access to the arts and the access to different communities. There is a lot of diversity here, there is a lot to learn and there’s a lot of different situations that you will encounter. I feel like when I was growing up in Houston, I didn’t realise it then, but there was some sense of shelter there, not as many people lived in that city and so the people are more spread out. Chicago has really shaped my experiences because there is not a single point in time where I’m not engaging with or meeting people that aren’t like me. It has shaped my art because not only has it opened my mind to this city, but Chicago has opened up my mind to the world, as I’ve met people from all kinds of different cultures and backgrounds. It inspired me to go see things. I started traveling to Europe, wanting to go to Africa and Ecuador, this desire really came from my experience in Chicago and meeting people from different cultures.
On what influences and inspires the art…
My craft is also very much self-taught, over time I have developed a skillset through imagination, thinking back to my childhood and to things that I truly enjoyed then. I always say that not only was I born in the 90’s but I feel like my art is also inspired by it as well. I love the vibrancy, I love the colours and the passion for the arts in the 90’s era. My work has very much evolved through experimentation.
I also believe using my heritage as part of the subject matter of my art is important because it allows for impactful storytelling though the lens of a millennial black male. When we take a look around galleries, international exhibits and mainstream art, there aren’t a ton of young black people who are highly visible or recognised. Therefore, when there is an opportunity to reach an audience with my work, more times than not I want it to be connected to what I’ve lived – or a subject I’ve had the privilege to learn and study.
Above all though, my biggest inspiration is people. It could be people in my life that I haven’t known for long and maybe their stories or situations inspire me. Or it could be people as famous as Basquiat, who is no longer with us, but his work still lives on. He is a black artist, whose work is vibrant, colourful, and still celebrated today. I’m also very in tune and connected with the works of Charles White, Kehinde Wiley is a fascinating artist as well, Lisa Butler and many others. I’m just a young black artist who is trying to learn from the best of them. That’s where I draw my inspiration from, it’s not that I’m trying to adapt their styles of work but more so, studying it, becoming familiar with it and appreciating it.
Perhaps this inspiration and passion for people is why so much of my work is portraiture. I love observing people, I love understanding consumer behaviour and human behaviour and in those cases the subject is also human a lot of the time. So sometimes I’m bringing my own story to life, other times I’m brining someone else’s story to life. That’s the important thing for me because I feel like my daily interaction with people is what inspires me to create, so a lot of what I create are actual humans that I’ve had some sort of experience with.
These days however, you can’t talk about the search for inspiration without touching upon social media. Very early on and I would say in my amateur stage of creating I was very much turning to social media in a bid to discover artists. As my work continued to evolve, I realised that there are a ton of artists who don’t live on social media. There is a whole artist network that is beyond the general publics eye, that you must do some digging and have some knowledge of the art community to learn from. These days, a lot of my inspiration is drawn from these more behind-the-scenes type of experiences, where I can not only view the art but maybe meet the artist and understand what drives them. My inspiration can really be drawn from anywhere; the streets, galleries, books and social media if I want to come across a young artist such as myself.
Establishing a creative voice…
Art for me, believe it or not, is still something that I haven’t 100% made full time. Not only did I start working in art professionally, but I also started working in marketing professionally which is another facet of my journey. I went to graduate school to study marketing and with that, my first experience as a professional was working in consumer insights and marketing with the Craft Heinz company. So, I’ve been a marketer by day studying insights and an artist by night. I think a lot of artists have that experience where they are not able to dive into their craft completely early on in their career. So, that’s where I’ve been but it’s nice to see I’m transitioning.
Talking of transitioning, I think my style is interesting because that continues to evolve too. I’m a person that never settles for the norm but I also have a lot of respect for where art comes from, the history of it and those artists who have broken boundaries, who have come before me. My art continues to evolve as I study other artists, as I play and experiment, as I put myself in high pressure situations, like painting live in front of people, I always find new ways to do things, new ways that I would not have found without putting myself under some sort of pressure and challenging myself.
In terms of mediums, canvas is where I started and you will see a lot of artists creating on canvas, whether it is small or large scale, it’s one of those things that is just comfortable for me. Later on, I got into street art and murals but this was something that I had to be pushed to do, I had to force myself to get uncomfortable and that is also how I was self-taught in painting large scale.
For me, mural paining is definitely a challenge because of the scale and in the beginning it was much more intimidating than canvas as well. Not only because it’s larger but because of the number of unknown people who are going to come across and see it. You never know who is going to walk by an outdoor piece, you never know what their level of expertise or their level of knowledge of the arts are. So its always unique being able to put art in public spaces at a large scale, because it allows for people who don’t have as much access to galleries and for people who had no intention of exploring art that day, to be either blessed by it or to have some sort of engagement or experience with it.
Reflecting and looking ahead…
2020 put me in a weird situation at the beginning of quarantine because like I said, I’m truly inspired and interested in the world beyond my home. I rarely spend time at home, anyone who knows me knows that I’m rarely there, I’m always moving and touching something.
Therefore, when quarantine came about, it was a tough experience for me because a lot of my inspiration is driven through human interaction; meeting with people, talking with people, seeing things outside of my home. That was my first time truly experiencing creative block actually and I had very hard time getting out of it. I believe that creative block is real, people experience it for different reasons. The way that I get out of it, is by getting out of my comfort zone, out of my home and out of a place that is comfortable.
But what quarantine did allow me to do was really sit and think, it allowed me to get right with myself and because of that I started building things that I never would have imagined myself building. I started working on a studio space, started figuring out ways I could bring communities together virtually versus needing to be in person. Which has been awesome because my family back in Houston has been able to see me create and see new projects I’m working on, whereas before they were disconnected from that. That is something that I have truly appreciated. I’ve built installations during this time, where as my medium before was simply canvas, which then evolved into large scale murals and now I find myself playing with different mediums and new materials to actually build out an experience for consumers to hopefully take a part in once quarantine and Coronavirus is a thing the past.
Looking ahead, my career goals are to become a great artist, to become an extremely knowledgeable insights professional and combine those two things to become an extraordinary creator. That is my goal, not only do I want to do that here in Chicago, but I also want to do that internationally. I want to start having an impact on the youth and my peers, at a level that is far beyond my current capability. I want to continue to push the boundaries, to meet people, to learn from them and inspire others too.