Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle

Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle (born 1987), also known as Olomidara Yaya, is an American artist and author. She was previously an assistant professor at the University of California at Berkeley Department of Art Practice. Her work focuses on questions of race, sexuality, and history through a variety of visual and textual mediums. She lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Notable works include the Kentifrica project, the Tituba series, The Evanesced, and the Uninvited series. She is a member of CTRL+SHFT Collective in Oakland, California.

Early life Hinkle was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1987; her experiences with racism and colorism, especially as they expressed themselves in language, were essential to her later response to these ideas in art. Hinkle was inspired by her mother, herself an artist: because she lived in the segregated South, she was unable to pursue her creative identity. Hinkle's mother introduced the idea of "powerful self-possession" to her.

She lived in Baltimore, MD while studying at the Maryland Institute College of Art, where she occasionally attended local slam poetry events.

Education Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle studied painting (BFA) at Maryland Institute College of Art and writing (MFA) at California Institute of the Arts. She studied at the AICAD/New York Studio Residency Program in Brooklyn, NY from 2008 to 2009. She was a US Fulbright Fellow in Lagos, Nigeria from 2015 to 2016. and The Studio Museum in Harlem in New York. Hinkle was included in the 2019 traveling exhibition Young, Gifted, and Black: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art.

Style and themes

"[Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle's] work investigates race, sexuality and history using historical objects in visual and performance art constructs." An idea central to her work is the concept, cleverly appropriated from grammatical jargon, of a "Historical Present", which she defines as "the residue of history and how it affects our contemporary world perspective".

The constructed culture of Kentifrica is also a recurring theme in Hinkle's work. Kentifrica is "a physical and theoretical location conceived by Hinkle. Holding [her] investments in geography, Diaspora, personal vs. collective histories, and the problematics of museum space, Kentifrican artifacts in the gallery space often assume an active role in each shows' narrative". This culture places great value and emphasis on the community, which can be seen in the ways Hinkle assembles objects together to interrogate the colonial and white gaze. Themes of fluid sexuality and collective responsibility that are important to Kentifrican culture are also present in the tactics Hinkle employs in her works. They form close social circles in which gender strictures are not prevalent. The community focuses on education and social well-being. According to Hinkle's narrative, the practices and independence of this culture have prevailed even as other cultures have been dominated by European powers. The presence of this concept in Hinkle's work has a goal: "the Kentifrican figure has a distinct role to heal and empower people who are soft-targets for manipulation and abuse".

She often uses photographs with her artworks and explores what could result from that. For instance, some of her artworks can be seen as nude, but the subject is obscured or covered in some way. For example, The Contagion (2012) shows a young African girl nearly naked, but partly obscured by thick red lines resembling ropes and organic, natural forms.

Artworks

Tituba Series In Hinkle's drawing series, Tituba, she was inspired by Maryse Condé’s novel "I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem" and relating to Tituba's experiences of being accused as a witch while recalling her own experiences of ostracization as a pregnant black woman.

The Kentifrica Project In Hinkle's The Kentrifrica Project, her goal is to create a collaborative space to examine Diaspora and cultural visibility. She invites communities to aid her in "reconstructing" the Kentrifican identity. The project is centered on the fictional, utopian continent of Kintifrica, described by Hinkle as "a contested geography/continent located between South America and Africa." Cultural concepts that Hinkle has emphasized within Kentrifica include the absence of property ownership, gender equality, and a collectivist culture.

"Through the embodiment of various voices and modes of address, Hinkle examines what happens to bodies in transit and how they are contextualized culturally depending upon historical hegemonic signifiers of race and culture." She therefore exposes the harsh subjugation of women by men. At the same time, she obscures the women's bare bodies from the viewers. Hinkle "reconstructs and reimagines the women [from the postcards] through vivid drawings and unique placements on the canvas - in a sense restoring their loss of power". Others have seen the drawn on lines as a representation of disease, meant to be a metaphor for colonialism.

The Kentifrica project was featured in the Made in L.A. 2012, making her the youngest artist featured.

Selected group exhibitions 2021 The Black Index (online only due to COVID-19 restrictions), University of California, Irvine (CAC Gallery), Irvine, California (January 14-March 20, 2021) with Dennis Delgado, Alicia Henry, Titus Kaphar, Whitfield Lovell, and Lava Thomas.