281:CROWN

ExpoChicago

LatchKey Gallery is proud to present CROWN at this year’s ExpoChicago, Exposure Section (Booth 281). Working from a place of healing, CROWN will feature new works by Josie Love Roebuck and Ashanté Kindle. Each artist uses their unique visual language to explore and ultimately rejoice in the legacy of Black hair.

At the center, symbolically hanging as an altarpiece is Josie Love Roebuck’s, Better than Blood. A tapestry that reflects the relationship between the artist and her mother, and how, through trial and error, taught Roebuck how to take care for her hair. Embroidered within the tapestry is a poem written for her 18th birthday, explaining her adoption, and the many things her mother fell in love with.  Oh the Curls, Oh the Lashes and Oh the Brown Skin, the embroidered poem leads the eye to portraits of Roebuck through the years while on either side, hangs silhouettes of the artist’s’ hair in gold screen print. 

Functioning as reliefs, the abstract works of Ashanté Kindle guide you through the rich and varying history of Black hair. Through the heavy impasto of acrylic paints, the marks and contours, each canvas is a celebration of the rich and diverse styles and textures. The metallic 
tones, gold, silver and bronze; colors of the gods, are embossed artifacts to be worshiped and adored. 

CROWN brings together these two artists to celebrate and honor the legacy of Black hair. It is named after the CROWN Act, a law that prohibits race-based hair discrimination which is the denial of employment and educational opportunities because of hair texture or protective hairstyles including braids, locs, twists or bantu knots.


Josie Love Roebuck (b. 1995) is an interdisciplinary artist from Chattanooga, TN. Her process addresses the contemporary complexity of identifying as biracial through symbolizing pain and triumph, exclusion, and acceptance. 

Roebuck is currently teaching at the University of Cincinnati where she received her M.F.A (2021). She received her B.F.A with an emphasis in drawing and painting, from the University of Georgia (2019). Roebuck has exhibited at NADA House, NY with LatchKey Gallery, Denny Dimin Gallery, NY, Christie's at Rockefeller Plaza in collaboration with 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair. 

Future exhibitions include, Kunstheille Krems Art Museum, Austria (2022) and Akron Art Museum, (2021). Her work is part of numerous private and public collections most notably, A. Boafo, Accra, Ghana, T. El Glaoui, London, UK, Jimenez-Colón Collection, San Juan, Puerto Rico Beth Rudin DeWoody, Florida, A. Shariat, Vienna, Austria, C. Shen, Brooklyn, NY and
Espacio Tacuarí, Buenos Aires, Argentina


Ashanté Kindle (b. 1990) characterizes her practice as a form of personal healing: creation driven by a desire to celebrate the history and beauty of Blackness. As a multi-disciplinary artist working in abstraction, she creates abstracted wave forms that resemble the natural textures that occur in Black hair through a range of styling techniques. 

Kindle currently resides in Mansfield, CT as an MFA candidate at The University of Connecticut. She received her BFA from Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, TN. She has exhibited at FALSE FLAG, New York, Red Arrow Gallery, Tennessee, and Center on Contemporary Art, Washington, among others. 

Her work is part of numerous public and private collections, most notably, Nike Opadiran, Washington, D.C., Drs Ato & Tonya Wright, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania , June Sarpong, London, United Kingdom, Deborah Beckmann Kotzubei, Los Angeles, California