The curators behind an art collection this summer at the ZuCot Gallery in Atlanta hope to change the narrative about Black fatherhood.
“I think the word ‘presence’ kind of ties it up – that Black fathers are present in their family’s lives,” said Troy Taylor, founding partner of the gallery, which is billed as the largest African-American-owned fine art gallery in the southeast.
“If you think about it, being a man, being a Black man out there in the world, there’s a lot of pressures; you go through a lot of emotions – anger, joy, frustration. You go through a lot of pressures in terms of economic or social,” said Taylor. ”Despite all of that, my experience and the experience of the vast majority of friends and colleagues is that their fathers were there for them.”
Onaje Henderson agrees. He, along with his brother Omari, are partners at the ZuCot Gallery.
“Like the CDC has these statistics that talk about how Black fathers are actually in their children’s life at higher rates than other groups. But news and everywhere else says that we are the least,” said Onaji Henderson. “And we also want to also deal with some of the ideas around mental health around Black men and just having a whole conversation, because a lot of these topics are ignored, even in our community.”
He says the idea for the collection came through conversations with artists the gallery has featured in the past.
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