VITUS SHELL
Chain Reaction. 2023, Acrylic paint, canvas.
Creatively interprets the experience of Aaliyah:
“Honestly, all the money that be going to the police, I would defund them. Make more shelters. Build more churches... All the people under the bridge, I would just go pick them up.”
A good chain can reference hip hop culture but can be traced back centuries. A chain, by definition, describes a link between another object or event. Gold is a precious metal that shows value—and in this piece it demonstrates the power of Aaliyah’s testimony on incarnation, and the longer effects on a person and their community.
Vitus Shell (b. 1978, Monroe, LA; based in Monroe, LA) is a mixed- media collage painter. His work is geared toward the Black experi-ence, giving agency to people from this community through powerful images deconstructing, sampling, and remixing identity, civil rights, and contemporary Black culture. Named the 2021 Louisianan of the Year by Louisiana Life magazine, Shell has circulated his work widely across the US, including artist residencies at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Anderson Ranch Art Center, Hermitage Artist Retreat, Mass MoCA, Joan Mitchell Center, Skowhegan School of Art, and Masur Museum of Art. Past exhibitions of his work also include the Cue Art Foundation, New Orleans African American Museum, the Langston Hughes Center and painted murals at the National Civil Rights Museum. Shell earned a BFA from Memphis College of Art and an MFA from the University of Mississippi. He currently teaches at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston.
INSTAGRAM theshellofvitus