As we talk in his loft above the Midtown Global Exchange in South Minneapolis, Usry Alleyne mentions that he was caught a bit off-guard by mnartists.org’s request for an interview. That’s likely because he is better known as a teacher or a photographer of arts events than as an artist. “Most of the time, I document other people’s work—tons of dance and theater performances around town, little documentaries for theaters and all kinds of things,” he says. “Sometimes people are surprised when you say you do your own stuff, too.” His work spans a variety of media—video art, sound art, photography—and it is unconcerned with the audience. “As an artist, I work for myself. Left alone, I go around observing, creating, reflecting, making, and [doing] very little talking.”
A short survey of Alleyne’s work makes his preference for graphic simplicity clear. Not Signs of Culture, a series exploring death, consists of lovely, vibrant photos of the disgusting. Some subjects are more readily identifiable than others, but none is an abstraction. A dead rat. Maybe some kind of food. Maybe a wound. Regarding pain and ugliness, he says, “We try to ignore it, to put it aside and pursue our lives. But I can’t. There’s a need to acknowledge that it happens.” If he could, Alleyne would “give the audience the experience of the process, along with the work that they see. When I’m painting, making video, listening to sound—there’s this process that happens that’s extremely wonderful, even if it’s looking at something disgusting.”
Originally published in issue 22.1 of access+ENGAGE. Subscribe to this free arts e-magazine at mnartists.org/accessengage.
Leave a Reply Cancel reply