ADRIENNE BROWN DAVID
Run. 2022, Oil paint on canvas.
Creatively interprets the experience of LaZariah:
“I don't know what told me to keep going. I was like, I got to get to the line. I can’t stop right here.”
Much of my work focuses on Black freedom and challenging the narrative of what Black youth looks like to much of society. This piece represents breaking free of past constraints and sprinting toward a future of growth. Each step brings the possibility of something new, something fresh.
Adrienne Brown-David (b. 1978, St. Louis, MO; based in Water Valley, MS) is a painter who focuses on children’s portraiture. As a mother of four children, she depicts life in African American communities and in her own family. Brown-David’s work preserves childhood moments of beauty, growth, innocence, and joy for Black and Brown youth. Her practice intentionally resists the racial prejudice of adultification bias and mainstream society’s urge to psychologically cut short the time in which minority-identified children develop, thus subjecting them to expectations of maturity. An arts educator in her local community, Brown-David studied at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. Her work is part of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York and several prestigious Mississippi private collections. It has been exhibited at the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art, Walter Anderson Museum, Southside Gallery, and 100 Men D.B.A. Hall, among other art spaces.
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