Titus Kaphar

Titus Kaphar is one of the most inventive and thought-provoking artist of his generation. Known for his powerful re-imaginings of historical narratives through painting, sculpture, and installation art, the American artist confronts issues of race, identity, and the representation of Black bodies in the art historical canon.

Kaphar was born in 1976 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. From his first junior college art history course, Kaphar was deeply interested in pursuing a career in art. Through his frequent trips to museums, he taught himself how to paint. He received his BFA from San José State University in 2001 and his MFA from Yale University in 2006. Kaphar’s practice is often disruptive and conceptual. He is known for cutting, tearing or layering canvases, as well as adding three-dimensional elements to his paintings.

By transforming the medium of painting through technical innovations, Kaphar examines the history of representation in Western painting. He is known for physically disrupting the picture plane by cutting away characters, shredding portions of the canvas, ‘White-washing’ his own images and adding thick layers of tar to the painted acrylic surfaces. All of these techniques draw attention to the physical nature of the painting, while simultaneously carrying the painting into a conceptual realm.

Kaphar created The Jerome Project, one of his most acclaimed series, in 2014 based on dozens of mugshots of incarcerated men who shared the first and last name of his father, Jerome. The resulting paintings reveal the effect of mass incarceration in the United States criminal justice system on Black people. The series features small, gold-leaf portraits of incarcerated men, submerged in tar up to their necks or faces, symbolising the erasure of these individuals from society. This project not only highlights systemic racism but also reflects Kaphar's interest in marrying 18th- and 19th-century American portraiture with contemporary social commentary.

Kaphar’s work has been featured in major exhibitions at institutions like the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.. In 2018, he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.